Lexical Density and Readability of Selected Children Stories

Abstract

This study aims to explore the lexical density and the readability level of reading in selected children stories in the book. This study employed a qualitative method with content analysis as the research design. The six stories from 35 children stories were selected in this research. Lexical Density of Ure’s formula and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) formula were used as the instruments of this study to measure the lexical density and the readability level of the book The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales: Bath Treasury of Children’s Classics. This research shows that four out of six short stories have low lexical density and two out six have high lexical density, four out of six short stories are in the Easy level or for 6th grade (categorized as children), and two out of six are in the Fairly Easy level or for 7th grade. It means that out of the six samples derived from the book, four short stories are considered to be spoken text, and four short stories are appropriate for children's stories.