On the net I often see people, mainly Americans, refer to reading levels of their children and the literature they read. I assume they are talking about something like a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level. We don't have anything like that. I'm sure some researchers have applied the same thing to German texts, but it's not something you encounter in real life.
Through studying computational linguistics I am no stranger to the idea of calculating numbers from texts. However I would tend to take such a simplistic formula with a grain of salt. Then again I realize that even if its assumptions seem a bit bold on the level of a single sentence they might still work well on longer texts on average.
Are the people who talk about their kids reading level refering to something based on formulas like Flesh-Kincaid?
Is there a real standard?
For what are they used in practice?
Calculating the reading level of a text is one thing. If people talk about the reading level of their children is that an estimate based on the thing they are comfortable reading or do you test this somehow?
How well do you think they work?