Readability of instructional film commentary

Abstract

The level of readability at which the oral commentaries of factual instructional films were written had a measurable effect upon the learning of the factual content of the film. Commentary written one grade level below the present grade level of the pupils resulted in significantly greater learning than did commentary written one grade level above. The Flesch, Dale-Chall, and Lorge Readability Formulas were about equal in predicting the comparative readability of film commentaries when several were measured. However, the Lorge Formula consistently predicted a reading level approximately 2 years lower than the Flesch Reading Ease Formula, and the Dale-Chall Formula varied in its prediction. The incorporation of such human interest factors as questions, imperatives, and personal pronouns in a film that lends itself to such humanizing resulted in much greater learning than when such a procedure was not used. The length of the passage had no measurable effect upon the learning from the films. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)