How to Improve Readability Scores Without Dumbing Down Your Writing

Readability scores have a PR problem. Writers who've been told to "target a Flesch score of 60 or above" often interpret this as "write at a sixth-grade level," which sounds — correctly — like dumbing down. The actual goal is different: remove the obstacles to comprehension while keeping the depth intact.

How Readability Scores Work¶

The most common readability formula is the Flesch Reading Ease score, calculated from: - Average sentence length (words per sentence) - Average syllable count (syllables per word)

Higher scores = easier to read. The scale runs roughly: - 90–100: Very easy (5th grade level) - 70–80: Easy (7th grade) - 60–70: Standard (8th–9th grade) - 50–60: Fairly difficult (college student) - 30–50: Difficult (college graduate) - 0–30: Very difficult (professional/technical)

Related scores like Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog, and SMOG use similar inputs and produce similar outputs.

The key insight: both variables are about length, not intelligence. You can write about complex ideas with shorter sentences and simpler words. Much technical writing uses unnecessarily long sentences and polysyllabic words not because the content requires it, but because of professional convention.

What Actually Drives Low Readability Scores¶

Before trying to improve a score, it helps to know what's actually dragging it down.

1. Long sentences that bundle multiple ideas¶

This is the single biggest driver of low readability scores, and it's also the main thing AI text does. A language model will regularly produce 40-word sentences containing three separate points joined by "which," "while," and "furthermore."

Low readability:

"The implementation of proper content structure, while often overlooked in the planning phase, plays a significant role in determining how effectively search engines can crawl and index your pages, which ultimately affects your organic visibility over time."

Higher readability, same meaning:

Content structure matters more than most people plan for. When it's done well, search engines can crawl your pages efficiently — and that directly affects organic visibility.

Three sentences, not one. Same information. Easier to read.

2. Nominalizations (turning verbs into nouns)¶

Nominalizations are verbs converted into nouns: "implementation" instead of "implement," "utilization" instead of "use," "consideration" instead of "consider."

They add syllables, add length, and drain energy from writing. Compare: - "The consideration of all available options" → "Consider all your options" - "Conducting an analysis of the data" → "Analyse the data" - "The achievement of better results" → "Achieve better results"

AI writing is full of nominalizations because they appear constantly in the formal writing that dominates training data.

3. Passive voice overuse¶

Passive constructions add words and distance. "Mistakes were made" is six syllables; "We made mistakes" is five, and it's more direct.

4. Jargon that could be replaced without loss¶

Some technical terms are genuinely necessary — using the right term for the right concept is precision, not complexity. But a lot of jargon in business and marketing writing is just convention: "synergies," "leverage," "ecosystem," "bandwidth." Replace them with what you mean.

What Doesn't Work: Oversimplification¶

Here's what chasing a high readability score the wrong way looks like: - Breaking every sentence to below 15 words, regardless of how related the ideas are - Replacing technical terms that your audience needs to know - Adding line breaks so aggressively the piece feels like a series of tweets - Losing nuance by collapsing "it depends" answers into false certainties

If your audience is oncologists, a Flesch score of 30 is appropriate — you're writing for professionals who read dense technical literature every day and would find oversimplified language condescending. If your audience is general consumers, 60–70 is about right.

Write for your actual reader, then check the score as a diagnostic, not as the goal.

A Practical Editing Pass for Readability¶

When you have a draft you want to improve:

1. Find your three longest sentences. Break each one at a natural point. Usually one edit reduces five long sentences to eight shorter ones.

2. Search for "which" and "that" clauses. Many can be converted into separate sentences or cut entirely.

3. Scan for "-tion," "-ment," "-ance" endings. These are nominalization markers. Ask: is there a verb that does this job better?

4. Replace "in order to" with "to." Always. No exceptions.

5. Read the opening sentence of each paragraph. If any of them exceed 25 words, break them up.

This pass typically adds 5–10 points to a Flesch score on first-draft prose without changing the substance.

Readability and AI Text¶

AI-generated text consistently scores poorly on readability metrics — usually landing in the 40–55 range for business writing. The reasons align exactly with the issues above: long sentences, nominalizations, passive voice, and stock connecting phrases that add words without adding meaning.

Running AI output through a humanizer addresses these patterns as a side effect of making the writing sound more natural. The same changes that make text sound less robotic also make it easier to read.

Check your readability score using AI Humanizer's Readability Checker — it shows your current score and highlights the sentences dragging it down. Then use the AI Humanizer to fix them.