Avoiding the Frustration Point of No Return
Finding success in language learning reading with readability measures
Everyone who has ever tried reading in a new language has experienced this: the frustration point. The point where they realize what they’re reading is just too hard. And they quit. Some people never return to the language at all. Successful learners may give up on that particular reading, but keep returning to the language until they can read fluently.
The frustration point is a reality in a new language, but it doesn’t have to be the end of someone’s language acquisition journey. Now, of course, we all deal with varying levels of frustration while trying to read in a new language. But the point where frustration becomes so high that we give up on the reading is a point worth thinking about. We need to find readings that are less likely to induce the frustration point of no return — readings that work.
In my experience, this frustration point is especially prominent when trying to switch from readings created for language learners to readings created for readers of the language. Some people would refer to this as the “intermediate level”. I’m at that point reading in Russian. I’m reading to move beyond language learning materials.
So, how am I avoiding defeat at the hands of the frustration point of no return? First, I’ll describe the most important question to ask in choosing something to read, then I’ll explain how I use readability measures to find readings that offer the right amount of challenge for me at the moment.
Do I Even Want to Read This?
First (and I think it’s very important that this is first) is to ask the question “Do I even want to read this?”. When I was reading language learning materials, I generally just read whatever I could find. I was simply grateful that some highly skilled language teachers had created texts simple enough for me to understand as a beginning reader in Russian.
I read them as I found them. Ones that were simplified to my “level” worked great. If they were too difficult I came back to them later. But as I started looking at Russian texts that weren’t created for language learners, there were limitless options. The internet is full of potential texts to read. But before I think about what “level” the reading is, I first have to find something I actually want to read. This may seem obvious, but it is critical because finding something I want to read will actually improve my comprehension.
First, I need to find things I genuinely want to read because frustration is inevitable as I switch to texts that weren’t written with my developing Russian language knowledge in mind. If I want to keep reading in the face of frustration I need to find things I want (and I mean really want) to know about.
If I’m very interested in a topic, then I will keep working on making sense of a reading even if it is difficult. If I’m not interested in the topic, I’m done at the first challenge. I’ve seen this happen again and again with the adult learners in my classrooms and I’ve seen it happen again and again with myself. An interesting reading (for me) essentially pushes the frustration point of no return further away, since I’m willing to manage more frustration if I’m motivated to find out about something.
But related to my interest in the topic is the knowledge I already have about the topic. Picking a topic I already know something about is important because the way we make sense when reading is by connecting the things we’re reading to what we already know. If I’m familiar with a topic then I can more easily make sense of difficult passages. My expectations and predictions for what the reading will be about will be more accurate.
My guesses at unfamiliar words will be more accurate. This background knowledge is fundamental to understanding while we read. We may not notice it while reading in our first language since most of the time we spend reading we’ve already (unconsciously) chosen something that we are interested in and familiar with.
Lastly, if I’m choosing something I’m interested in and familiar with I’ll also be choosing a type of text I’m familiar with. For example, if I read lots of sports journalism, then an article about hockey scores would be a great choice. Not only do I have lots of background knowledge about the topic and I’m interested in who won, but I’ll also be familiar with the moves of an article about a hockey game.
I can expect it to give me the final score, then explain who scored, include other important plays, and reference some players I may already know. If I have well-developed expectations for how this type of text works, when I get confused or lose a sense of what it’s talking about I’ll be able to make pretty good guesses at where I’m at and keep going instead of throwing my hands in the air and giving up.
Now this all may seem self-evident, but it’s worth keeping in mind that these things may not be true of barely any of the readings we run into in language learning materials. And this becomes a huge advantage to reading things created for native speakers (erm, or readers) instead of language learners. Oftentimes language classes emphasize language “levels” so much that we can lose sight of motivation and interest.
When we’re assigned readings we’re expected to generate our own motivation and interest, and even if we’re self-studying in a language with a textbook the textbook itself can lead us down those same paths… I’m “supposed” to read this next because it is next in the textbook, even if I don’t care about the party invitation or dialogue or recipe they’ve inserted into the textbook. Starting with our own motivations and interests sets us up for success. But that of course isn’t everything. I may love history, but I’m not ready to read an academic history book written in Russian. So now it’s time to think about finding the right “level”.
Readability Measures
In reading research some people develop “readability tests”. These are tests meant to measure the difficulty (often measured as grade level) of a text. There are different formulas created by different researchers. They often measure the length of sentences, the length of words, and sometimes how many words in the reading are “higher frequency” vs “lower frequency” (more uncommon words make the text’s grade level higher). They do some fancy calculations and then assign a grade level to the text.
Much of the research on these argue about whether they can perfectly categorize texts in an individual grade level for children. But for adult language learners doing self-study, we don’t need a perfect categorization. I’m not in a specific grade. I just want to know if the text is really hard (college level), difficult but doable with some work (secondary or high school level), or is it closer to where I’m at as an intermediate-ish learner (primary or grade school level).
Conveniently, some folks have created websites where we can copy and paste a reading into a text box and immediately get the readability measurements (no need to do the complex calculations ourselves). I’ve found this quite helpful since starting to use them in Russian.
In the past, I’d find a news article that sounded interesting, try to read the first few sentences, immediately run smack into my frustration point and give up. The readability measure though has allowed me to find articles that are much more doable for me. Now, when I start an article I have a better sense of how challenging it will be, knowing I’m much more likely to move through articles with easier readability scores.
There have also been days where I felt up to a challenge, so I chose something rated more difficult knowing it would take multiple readings and lots of cognitive work. Our frustration points after all vary not only with the reading but also based on the day and whatever other things are taking up space in our minds.
Readability measures of course aren’t perfect. I did struggle with an article that the readability test rated around 4th grade. (Part of the issue with that particular article was that the title and image attached to it were not helpful for understanding what the article was about, so I felt lost for quite a bit of the reading).
On the other hand, I read a news article the other day that was a follow-up to a topic I had just read about. I understood it quite well. Afterward, I checked its readability rating and it came out at 14th grade (aka college level). As I mentioned earlier, if it’s a topic I have background knowledge of and am interested in, I can handle bigger challenges. So, readability measures aren’t a silver bullet, but they certainly help us as we look for texts that won’t trigger the frustration point of no return.
Nuts and Bolts of Readability Measures
If you’re interested in using readability measures to find readings that are a good match for your abilities, here are a few suggestions to get you started:
First, you’ll need an online readability calculator. I literally just put “readability test” into Google Translate to find out the Russian equivalent and then searched for it on Google. My top result Простом Языке (plain language) is the Russian readability calculator I’m using now. I have run across online readability calculators for a few other languages too:
If you’re learning Spanish check out Legible.
For Italian, you may want to try Gulpease (their measures are not on a grade-level scale so check out this explanation in order to use it).
Check out the Readability Formulas website for English. (And if you’re an English language learner congrats on reading this article. It’s at a 9th-grade reading level according to the SMOG index).
Once you’ve found a readability calculator it can be helpful to play around with it a bit and get a feel for its ratings. Plug in some readings you’ve done that were easy. Check the readability measures. I personally found these rated around the 3rd-5th grade level. Then plug in some readings that you’ve tried which were difficult but doable. For me, those were 6–9th-grade level. Finally, you can even plug in some readings you’ve tried and were just too difficult (those were grade 12 through college for me).
Now with a general sense of what’s in your wheelhouse, you can search first for what you’re interested in and then check and see how difficult it may be. Keep in mind that nothing is off-limits here. Find the topic and amount of challenge you’re looking for. Of course, these measures aren’t perfect, reading is not a formulaic process, so finding multiple options and trying them out can be quite helpful.
Happy reading and best of luck always returning to your language no matter how frustrating it was last time!
