Eleanor H. Porter · 1868
Heavy going at CET-4 level. Not unreadable — just not readable the look-every-word-up way.
Coverage = the share of words in the text you already know. The research gives two lines: 98% before independent fluent reading is realistic, 95% for the instructional level that needs support (Hu & Nation, 2000). Proper nouns are not counted as unknown — recognising that it is a name is enough; this book has 273 of them.
Advanced — read it with glosses. 55,751 words in total; at 150 words a minute for a non-native reader, about 6 h 12 min to finish. Average sentence length 11.2 words — short sentences, brisk pace. This book is heavy on rare, archaic and invented words: even 25,000 high-frequency word families will not reach 95% coverage — its difficulty is not in the common vocabulary.
The opening of Pollyanna, word for word. Tap any word you don't know and its meaning here appears beside it — no sign-up, tap as often as you like.
Miss Polly Harrington entered her kitchen a little hurriedly this June morning. Miss Polly did not usually make hurried movements; she specially prided herself on her repose of manner. But to-day she was hurrying--actually hurrying.
Nancy, washing dishes at the sink, looked up in surprise. Nancy had been working in Miss Polly's kitchen only two months, but already she knew that her mistress did not usually hurry.
“Nancy!”
“Yes, ma'am.” Nancy answered cheerfully, but she still continued wiping the pitcher in her hand.
“Nancy,”--Miss Polly's voice was very stern now--“when I'm talking to you, I wish you to stop your work and listen to what I have to say.”
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Ordered by unknown words per 100. Lower reads easier; to step up a level, pick a higher number.
Computed by Readii from the public-domain text (updated 2026-10-21), not estimated by hand. The Readii reading level is our own scale, anchored on unknown-word density; it is not the same system as Lexile or AR and does not convert directly. Unknown words are measured against the CET-4 ∪ Gaokao lists, so this is difficulty for a Chinese-speaking learner, not a native-child reading level.