Re: [chiPHPug-discuss] Lexile text level

[Richard L. <ce...@l-...>]

Since nobody else has responded...

Perhaps instead of trying to duplicate a close-source proprietary
algorithm, you should just use their servers to get the score.

You can use PHP to POST the text, and get the number back with
http://php.net/curl

On Tue, April 21, 2009 6:48 pm, Adam Larsen wrote:
> Hi gang,
>
> I'm a school psychologist by day, but a PHP hacker by night.  Often,
> I'm presented with problems that end up being solved much more easily
> with some programming skill than with anything remotely resembling
> psychology.
>
> I'm working on a tool that will analyze a piece of given text and
> provide the usual readability statistics, among many other things.
> The Flesch-Kincaid grade equivalent score was easy to implement, but
> another one that I would like to use is giving me much more trouble.
> The Lexile Framework is a leveling system designed to help
> teachers/parents/kids select books that are at the appropriate reading
> level, regardless of grade level.  The formula for calculating the
> level is proprietary, from that I can tell.  The only place I know of
> that one can analyze a text and find a level is here:
> http://www.lexile.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?view=ed&tabindex=2&tabid=16&tabpageid=335
>
> This involves uploading a text document to their server so it can be
> processed, and then the Lexile level is spit back out.  What I'd like
> is for a user (me) to be able to enter the text into a POSTed form and
> have that Lexile level be returned on the formatted PDF that I'm
> creating.  This project has done me well for Flesch-Kincaid and
> Coleman Liau (http://code.google.com/p/php-text-statistics/), but I
> can't find anything similar for Lexile.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with readability in PHP that could
> help point me in the right direction?  An open-source project that
> calculates the score would be ideal.  Otherwise, I'm not sure how I
> could use the proprietary tool from MetaMetrics to do this on the fly.
>
> Thanks for any suggestions you might have.
>
> Adam P. Larsen
> apl...@gm...
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and
> around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save
> $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco.
> 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today.
> Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p
> _______________________________________________
> chiPHPug-discuss mailing list
> chi...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/chiphpug-discuss
>


-- 
Some people ask for gifts here.
I just want you to buy an Indie CD for yourself:
http://cdbaby.com/search/from/lynch