I’ve made an extensive study of best sellers using Flesch Reading Ease scales and the Flesch-Kincaid scale using the onboard Readability stats for MS Word. This business about grade levels is nonsense. When I tested corporate writing, using text from the “About Us” tab on corporate websites, the density of the language would sometimes compute in excess of the 20th grade level, whatever that is. (Mind, that was using older versions of Word. Later versions take the scale no higher than 12th grade, and that is no indication of intelligence in writing, believe me.)
It might surprise you to know that the best-selling Misery, by Stephen King, in the samples I chose, came in at around the 4th grade. Nobody would say SK is dumb or worst as that misleading headline did in that story. The Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegman? Samples came in at 6th-grade levels.
The Readability stats would put those two at about 90 percent and 80 percent, respectively. Meaning that percent of all readers would comprehend the writing.
Bottom Line: Trump is the best of these communicators, because more people understand his message, from sixth-graders on up. If I’m not mistaken a similar slimy report once put Obama at the 10th or 11th grade level and polished his apple for high intellect and brilliance. When actually, fewer people understood him because 10th or 11th graders on up would comprehend him. You know, if he actually said anything that made sense.
Stegner.
I left high school with a second year college reading level, which has only improved with time. I still can’t comprehend half of Obama’s dreck.