>In Canada, educational material aimed at the general public should >not
exceed
>grade 7 and is generally recommended  at between grade 5 - 7 level

And one of our hospital staff educators tells me that when people read
medical/health info,  literacy drops a couple of grade levels below their
usual capability.

When I'm writing BF handouts, I break everything down into short paragraphs
with white space between each one, use boldface and large type with very
simple words for the first sentence, then use a more complex vacabulary and
sentence structure to explain in the rest of the paragraph.  I hope this
enables patients with low literacy levels to get the general idea without
boring the better readers, who can pursue the info in more depth if they
want.

BTW, I have a SMOG formula which can be done by hand to determine literacy
levels.  Let me know by e-mail if you'd like it. It's a bit long to post
here.

Judy/WV