Rudolf Flesch

March 8, 1911 (age 75)

Vienna, Austria

He created the Flesch Reading Ease test and was co-creator of the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. Flesch advocated use of phonics rather than sight reading to enable students to sound-out unfamiliar words. Not long after finishing his graduate degree, in 1955 he published what became his most famous book, Why Johnny Can"t Read: And What You Can Do about lieutenant The book was a critique of the then-trendy practice of teaching reading by sight, often called the "look-say" method. The flaw of this method, according to Flesch, was that it required brute force memorization with no theory behind it so that when confronted with an unknown word, the learner became confused. As a solution, Flesch advocated a revival of the phonics method, the teaching of reading by teaching learners to sound out words using rules. The book inspired Doctor Seuss to write The Cat in the Hat (1957). Flesch flourished as a writing teacher, plain-English consultant, and author He published many books on the subject of clear, effective communication: How to Test Readability (1951), How to Write Better (1951), The Art of Plain Talk (1946), The Art of Readable Writing (1949), The American Broadcasting Company of Style: A Guide to Plain English (1964), and Rudolf Flesch on Business Communications: How to Say What You Mean in Plain English (1972). Flesch produced three other books of note: In The Art of Clear Thinking (1951), Flesch consolidated research data and findings in psychology and education, showing people how they can apply those ideas to their lives. "lieutenant would be impudent to tell intelligent, grown up people how to think," he wrote in this book"s introduction. "All I have tried to do here is to assemble certain known facts about the human mind and put them in plain English." In Lite English (1983), Flesch advocated the use of many colloquial and informal words. The subtitle of the book reveals his bias: Popular Words That Are Oklahoma to Use Number Matter What William Safire, John Simon, Edwin Newman, and the Other Purists Say! In How to Write Plain English: A Book for Lawyers and Consumers (1979), which he produced while working as a communication and writing consultant to the Federal Trade Commission, Flesch wrote a "how-to" guide for writing rules and regulations, with a preface by then Federal Trade Commission Chairman Michael Pertschuk.