How Children Fail by John Holt
Published 1964 · 320 pages · 65,000 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Education & Reference, Nonfiction, Psychology
How hard is How Children Fail to read?
How Children Fail scores 18 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 20 out of 100
- Plain language. No jargon or academic terminology.
- Sentence structure: 22 out of 100
- Abstraction: 30 out of 100
- Specific classroom observations building to systemic critique.
- Information density: 40 out of 100
- Rich in observed detail. Each entry packs insight.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Diary format. Observations followed by reflections.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- The classroom as microcosm of institutional control.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- A teacher discovering that his own teaching causes harm.
- Resolution withholding: 15 out of 100
- Holt diagnoses the problem more than he solves it.
- Structural complexity: 18 out of 100
- Journal entries organized thematically. Accessible format.
How How Children Fail is regarded
How Children Fail holds a literary regard score of 55 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.