Washington, March 2 (RHC)-- U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech at his first joint address to the U.S. Congress has been rated at a seventh-grade reading level as footage of him emerges practicing in a limo before his family members. 

The calculation was based on a common measure of comprehension, which tracks sentence length and the number of syllables in words, Time reported Wednesday.  The level marks the lowest since former President Ronald Reagan. 

Compared to former President Barrack Obama’s 2009 speech, given at a ninth grade level, Trump’s contained shorter sentences with fewer mouthfuls, which made his more accessible and less complex.  “The intricacy of the language is not the primary factor in what makes an effective speech,” Time noted in its report. 

The Time magazine story further concluded that the Republican president’s speech writers could have opted for a more complex language but their avoidance “is congruent with the populist message peppered throughout Trump's first major address.” 

Meanwhile, a video of Trump practicing for the speech, shortly before it was about to take place, went viral on social media as an unprecedented scene.  In the video, Trump is seen mouthing words while looking at a paper on the way to the Capitol Hill for the Tuesday address.  He was seated in the back of a limousine next to his wife, First Lady Melania Trump.  The scene was captured by an MSNBC camera as Trump was about to leave the White House. 

Unlike most of his previous speeches, Trump tried to adopt a more unifying tone and struck a conventional presidential posture during the maiden address.