Selecting a suitable reader: procedures for teachers to assess language differences

In another article in this journal Owens discusses factors to consider when selecting reading materials for use with learners of English as a second language. The two principal factors that Owens singles out for discussion are, first, what the writer says, that is the book’s content and interest level, and second, the language the writer uses or the book’s reading ease or difficulty. The present paper is concerned with Owens ’ second point, that is describing objective procedures for teachers to use in assessing the language difficulty of instructional materials. The procedures to be described have been extensively tested with learners of English as a second language. The question of level of difficulty of reading materials is a crucial one to teaching for learning is optimum when there is a close match between the ability of the learner and the difficulty of the material to be learned. The old pedagogical principle of catering for individua