Readability of Philippine Literature in English in Commercially Published English Textbooks

Abstract

Readability studies in the United States have a long history spanning over 70 years, but here in the Philippines, these studies are rare. Readability studies are important in the evaluation of texts to match the readers and their textbooks so that communicative competencies will be developed. This study explored the readability of nine (9) Philippine short stories written in English that are featured in commercially published Grade 7 English textbooks. Three (3) readability indices were used to describe the level of text difficulty.: Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level, Cloze Test, and Readability Checklist. The texts were tested for the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level through online readability calculators. The same texts were converted into cloze tests and were given to 75 Grade Six students of one (1) private and one (1) public school in a first-class urban municipality outside of the National Capital Region. Three (3) Grade 7 English teachers and 20 Grade 8 students evaluated the difficulty level using the readability checklist. Results show that the short stories chosen for Grade 7 English textbooks are much too difficult for the students in that level. The short stories have varied levels of text difficulty, from 3.0 to 10.0 Flesch-Kincaid Grade levels, which reveal the absence of any leveling standards in choosing the literary pieces included in Grade 7 English textbooks. Based on the readability checklists done by both teachers and Grade 8 students, the stories were of high quality in terms of literary merit. However, the cloze scores show that these stories are frustrating for the Grade 7 students, which means the students do not yet have the linguistic abilities require to understand the text, and teachers will require more effort in helping students to understand the text.