Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Chart With Examples

By Stephanie  ·  Last updated July 31, 2026

Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level are two different outputs of the same underlying formula, both built from average sentence length and average syllables per word, but they're scaled and read in noticeably different ways. This is a practical reference chart for translating between them and applying the right target for different kinds of content and audiences.

The two scales side by side

• Reading Ease 90-100 / Grade Level 5th grade: Very easy to read. Simple sentences, common words. Typical of children's books and the simplest instructional copy.
• Reading Ease 80-90 / Grade Level 6th grade: Easy to read. Conversational, short sentences.
• Reading Ease 70-80 / Grade Level 7th grade: Fairly easy to read. The upper end of the general web content target range.
• Reading Ease 60-70 / Grade Level 8th-9th grade: Plain English. This is the core target zone for most general-audience web content, blog posts, product pages, and marketing copy.
• Reading Ease 50-60 / Grade Level 10th-12th grade: Fairly difficult. Appropriate for more technical general content, longer-form journalism, and detailed guides for an engaged audience.
• Reading Ease 30-50 / Grade Level College: Difficult. Typical of academic writing, detailed technical documentation, and legal content.
• Reading Ease 0-30 / Grade Level College graduate: Very difficult. Dense academic papers, specialized technical or scientific writing for expert audiences only.

Why the two numbers move in opposite directions

This trips people up constantly: a higher Reading Ease score means easier content, while a higher Grade Level means harder content. A score of 90 Reading Ease corresponds to roughly a 5th grade level, both indicating very easy text. A score of 30 Reading Ease corresponds to a college graduate reading level, both indicating very difficult text. Keep this inversion in mind whenever comparing the two, they describe the same underlying difficulty from opposite ends of the scale, and mixing them up in a brief or a style guide is a common, easily avoided source of confusion between writers and editors.

What target to use for different content types

General web content, blog posts, landing pages, most marketing copy, should target Reading Ease 60-80, roughly a 7th to 9th grade level. This isn't a comment on your audience's actual education level, extensive readability research consistently finds that even highly educated readers prefer and better retain content written at this level when they're reading for information rather than deep study, because lower reading effort leaves more cognitive capacity for actually absorbing the content. A reader with a graduate degree skimming a product page on their phone is in exactly the same low-effort reading mode as anyone else in that moment, and content written for that mode performs better regardless of who's reading it.

Technical documentation aimed at a specialist audience can reasonably run into the 40-60 Reading Ease range, since precise technical vocabulary sometimes can't be simplified without losing accuracy, and the audience already carries the domain knowledge to parse denser sentences. Legal and compliance content often sits even lower by necessity, though even there, plain-language rewrites of the surrounding explanatory text, apart from the required exact legal phrasing, measurably improve comprehension.

How to move your score in either direction

Since the formula is built entirely from sentence length and word length, those are the only two levers. To raise Reading Ease, shorten sentences by splitting compound ones at natural seams like "and" or "which," and swap inflated multi-syllable words for plain equivalents, utilize to use, approximately to about, facilitate to help. To lower it deliberately, for content that genuinely needs more precision or formality, combine related short sentences and retain necessary technical terminology rather than simplifying it away.

Checking where your content actually lands

Paste any draft into our free readability checker to see both scores instantly, along with which specific sentences are pulling the score down. Long sentences over 25 words are the most common culprit worth checking first. Our fuller guide on what readability score to aim for covers the improvement process in more depth, including when it's appropriate to ignore the general target entirely.

One sentence at three different levels

Seeing the same idea at different points on the scale makes the chart concrete. At a college graduate level, roughly Reading Ease 25: "The implementation of the aforementioned methodology necessitates comprehensive stakeholder consultation prior to operationalization." At a 10th to 12th grade level, roughly Reading Ease 55: "Using this approach requires consulting with stakeholders thoroughly before putting it into practice." At an 8th grade level, roughly Reading Ease 65, the general web content target: "Before you use this approach, talk to everyone it affects." Same core idea, and the shortest version is also the clearest one, which is generally true across the whole scale, simplifying almost always improves clarity rather than just lowering a score for its own sake.

Frequently asked questions