Reading LevelsUpdate: Google has removed this feature (July 2015)

While a class web page can provide a useful environment to share links to web sites and other resources that support your class activities, finding sites that are suitable for your students often consumes a great deal of time.

Google provides a tool that may help – you can filter web site search results by reading level.

Google can filter sites into three reading levels: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced, based on the vocabulary and sentence structure of the site.

  • Pages filtered as Advanced tend to have longer, more complicated sentences and more difficult vocabulary;
  • Intermediate pages are a little less complicated in sentence structure and vocabulary;
  • Basic level is the easiest level to read.
Here’ how to filter your Google search results based on reading levels….
1. Create a new search.

Search Google

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2. At the top of the page, above the search results, click on the Search Tools button.

Search Tools

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 3. In the new row of links that appears below the Search Tools button, click on All Results, and choose Reading Level from the pop-up menu.

Reading Levels

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4. Google presents a graph of the percentage results for each reading level across all the results of your search – Basic, Intermediate and Advanced.

Reading Level Results

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5. Clicking on the link adjacent to each level (ie – on the words Basic, Intermediate or Advanced) will filter the results to show only those results that match the filter criteria.

Select Level

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6. You can use these filtered links as a starting point for adding suitable sites to your class web page, or suggested research links for a class project.

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  Learn more about creating a class web site for your class projects >>>