Does anyone have reference material on designing training content around a certain reading level for employees. In the past I have heard that it is best to keep it on an 8th grade level.

I strongly suggest to you make for Instructional Technologhy and Media for Learning by Sharon E. Smaldino, James D. Russell, Robert Heinich and Michael Molendte. I think it helps you.

Gokhan
HR Development Specialist

I recently completed Langevin's Instructional Design and our trainer suggested to write at a grade 6 level.

I would suggest 3 grade levels below the lowest level of education of your audience. As with all things ID it starts with the audience, and as audience changes the reading level should as well.

Unfortunately, I would also agree with the suggested aptitude levels outlined in the previous post. My concern is not derived from the suggestion themselves, but rather that they are all sadly correct. According the recent studies conducted by the National Endowment of the Arts the average reading and comprehension levels have declined significantly over the past decade.

“New York, N.Y. - Literary reading is in dramatic decline with fewer than half of American adults now reading literature, according to a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survey released today. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America reports drops in all groups studied, with the steepest rate of decline - 28 percent - occurring in the youngest age groups."

Here are some other interesting statistics:

1992 The National Adult Literacy Survey, National Center for Education Statistics. Nearly 50% of the Americans surveyed cannot read well enough to find a single piece of information in a short publication, nor can they make low level inferences based on what they read.

1993 The National Adult Literacy Survey, Educational Testing Service. 75% of adult Americans with chronic health conditions scored in the lowest two literacy levels assessed.

1994 Pediatrics, 3-94 The average reading level of American parents of young children is 7th or 8th grade, but 80% of pediatric materials for parents are written at the 10th grade level or above.

1995 Emory University/UCLA study, reported in JAMA, 12-95. 41.6% of American patients could not comprehend directions for taking medication on an empty stomach
26% were unable to understand information regarding when their next appointment was scheduled
50.5% could not understand a standard informed consent form.

1996 "Physical Assessment: The Pharmacist and the Self-medicating Patient," Drug NewsletterAbout 20% of the US population are functionally illiterate; for some subsets of our population, that rises to 40%.

1999 Education levels in the U.S. About one in every four Americans (25%) is a high school dropout About half (45%) have gone to college for some period of time, but fewer than one in six (15%) have a college degree.

These are some very disturbing statements of us a people. I can’t help but feel that if we keep just dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator, that is all we will get. DUMB. I know from my own personal experiences that I am where I am at in my professional life as a result of having overcome challenges not the reverse. I would like to remind us all that as training professionals, we too are part of the education system. Perhaps we should bear some of the responsibility of the statistics. As long as employers, vis a vie through our training material only requeire a sixth grade reading level, then that will be all that we will get.

Just a thought.