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FORCAST Readability Calculator

FORCAST is designed for technical text such as forms and instructions. It uses single‑syllable word counts.

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מתי להשתמש

Use FORCAST for technical, non-narrative text: forms, instructions, parts manuals, safety-data sheets. It is the only mainstream formula that does not require sentence boundaries, so it works on bullet-heavy or fragmented documents that defeat other formulas.

השוואה

FORCAST is unique among readability formulas in ignoring sentences. For technical documentation it is more reliable than Flesch–Kincaid; for prose, much less so.

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איך זה עובד

FORCAST was developed in 1973 by Caylor, Sticht, Fox, and Ford specifically for technical, non-narrative writing (forms, manuals, instructions).

It uses a 150-word sample and counts single-syllable words: 20 − (single-syllable words / 10).

It does not require sentence-level analysis, which makes it ideal for evaluating bulleted or fragmented text.

נוסחה

שאלות נפוצות

When should I use FORCAST?

FORCAST is designed for non-narrative text: instructions, forms, technical manuals. It does not require sentence-level analysis.

How does FORCAST count syllables?

It samples a 150-word passage and counts how many of those words have exactly one syllable. The fewer single-syllable words in the sample, the higher the resulting grade level.

Why does FORCAST not use sentence length?

It was designed for technical material like forms, manuals, and instructions, which often lack normal sentences. Because it only counts single-syllable words, it works on text where sentence-based formulas would fail.

What grade-level range does FORCAST produce?

In practice it typically returns grades between about 5 and 12, since the score is 20 minus one-tenth of the single-syllable word count in 150 words. It was originally validated for the grade 5 to 12 range used by military technical manuals.

דוגמה מעשית

קלט

150-word technical-procedure sample with ~85 single-syllable words.

פלט

FORCAST grade level: 11.5 — 11th–12th grade.

FORCAST = 20 − (single-syllable words in 150-word sample / 10). 85 single-syllable words → 20 − 8.5 = 11.5.

מלכודות נפוצות

  • Requires exactly 150 words; the formula does not generalise to shorter samples.
  • Ignores sentence structure entirely — runs equally on a wall of bullet points and a paragraph.
  • Not validated for narrative prose; will under-rate well-written stories.
  • Insensitive to vocabulary difficulty beyond syllable count.

כלים קשורים

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