CAN READABILITY FORMULAS BE USED TO SUCCESSFULLY GAUGE DIFFICULTY OF READING MATERIALS?

A grade level of reading material is commonly estimated using one or more readability formulas, which purport to measure text difficulty based on specified text characteristics. However, there is limited direction for teachers and publishers regarding which readability formulas (if any) are appropriate indicators of actual text difficulty. Because oral reading fluency (ORF) is considered one primary indicator of an elementary aged student's overall reading ability, the purpose of this study was to assess the link between leveled reading passages and students’ actual ORF rates. ORF rates of 360 elementary‐aged students were used to determine whether reading passages at varying grade levels are, as would be predicted by readability levels, more or less difficult for students to read. Results showed that a small number of readability formulas were fairly good indicators of text, but this was only true at particular grade levels. Additionally, most of the readability formulas were more accurate for higher ability readers. One implication of the findings suggests that teachers should be cautious when making instructional decisions based on purported “grade‐leveled” text, and educational researchers and practitioners should strive to assess difficulty of text materials beyond simply using a readability formula.     

Another look at the “C” in CBM: Does it really matter if curriculum‐based measurement reading probes are curriculum‐based?

This study investigated differences between two types of reading probe material to monitor students' oral reading fluency over time. Thirty‐six second‐grade students participated in this study. Twice each week for 5 weeks, participants read two passages from each of two sources. One source was the curriculum in which the child was being instructed at school, and the second source was the “Tests of Reading Fluency,” a set of generic (curriculum‐independent) passages. Standardized curriculum‐based measurement administration and scoring procedures were used. Level and rate of improvement (slope) of oral reading fluency were the dependent measures. Level and slope data were analyzed using two, two‐tailed t‐tests. Also, readability of passages was calculated using two readability formulas. Correlational analyses were used to examine the relation between the readability and reading fluency. Correlations among readability and words read correct were not significant. Results of the analyses examining level and slope indicated that students read significantly more words correct in the generic reading passages than in the curriculum‐based passages. However, rate of progress was not significantly different. These results suggest that practitioners could use either set of passages to gauge students' reading progress over time. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Reconceptualizing Readability: The Relationship between Surface and Underlying Structure Analyses in Predicting the Difficulty of Basal Reader Stories

Abstract

Readability has traditionally been predicted by tabulating surface structure variables such as vocabulary and sentence length. These criteria are used in determining levels within basal reading series. The prediction of readability as a function of underlying structure- or the logical relationship among higher-order text elements-has not been systematically investigated. In this study a difficulty formula based on underlying structure analysis was applied to basal reader stories and compared to difficulty levels as determined by the Fry Readability Formula. Results indicated that there is no systematic increase in underlying structure difficulty with increase in grade level. Implications for readability research and for basal reader content and instruction are discussed.     

大学生英语语音意识培养与阅读能力提升

文章通过探讨英语专业本科新生语音意识和阅读能力之间的相关性,研究大学生提高阅读能力的过程中遇到的问题,并从语音教学的角度提出利用自然拼读法增强学生英语语音意识,减轻学习负担,迅速扩大词汇量的方法。本科新生英语语音不准和语音意识薄弱问题会导致其单词记忆困难和阅读效果不理想,而大学阶段的英语阅读量大、知识内容覆盖面广、专业词汇丰富的特点使学生必须尽快解决这些难题。自然拼读法教学能够帮助学生培养和增强语音意识,进而有效地提高学生的阅读能力,是行之有效的教学方法。     

Exploring the Relationship Between Text‐Leveling Systems and Reading Accuracy and Fluency in Second‐Grade Students Who Are Average and Poor Decoders

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between different text‐leveling systems and reading accuracy and fluency in second‐grade students with and without decoding difficulties. Two‐hundred‐forty‐eight second‐grade students, 44 identified as low achieving (LA) and 204 identified as average achieving (AA) in decoding skill, participated in the 15‐week study. During the study teachers collected data weekly on students' text‐reading accuracy and fluency using curriculum‐based measurement (CBM) techniques. Text attributes such as readability, decodability, percentage of high frequency words, average words per sentence, and percentage of multisyllabic words were estimated for each passage. Results using the entire sample of children indicated that accuracy of text reading was uniquely predicted by the percentage of high frequency words in the passages, whereas both the percentage of high frequency words and passage decodability made unique contributions to variance in passage‐reading fluency. Moreover, results suggested that the relationship between text‐leveling variables and reading performance was similar in the LA and AA groups, with only a slight trend favoring a stronger relationship between passage decodability and measures of text‐reading performance in the AA group compared to the LA group.     

Linguistic and cultural factors in the readability of mathematics texts: the Whorfian hypothesis revisited with evidence from the South African context

South Africa is a country of many languages and cultures. Education is mostly in English which implies that about 80% of all secondary school students are second language learners. Currently many mathematical problems are posed in real-life contexts. This not only introduces more language in mathematics texts, but also more issues related to culture. When considering the influence on readability, it is difficult to disentangle the role of linguistic and cultural factors and this in turn seems to be a manifestation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The study was therefore guided by research questions such as: what linguistic and cultural factors in the ordinary language of mathematics texts influence readability? Protocol analysis was used with students aged 17–18 years to establish readability problems. Linguistic as well as cultural factors were identified and the hypothesis that improved readability of mathematics assignments improves achievement was confirmed in a number of cases. Writers of mathematics texts should therefore consider linguistic as well as cultural factors when writing for different reading audiences. Other conclusions address teaching and examination practice.     

汉语分级阅读的词汇影响因素研究

文本可读性研究旨在为分级阅读文本的选取和编写提供客观、可量化的评测依据。本文选取部编版二年级、七年级和十二年级语文教材构建低、中、高三个难度等级的文本库,从词汇多样性、词频概貌、词汇密度和词汇长度四个维度考察可能影响汉语文本可读性的词汇因素。研究发现影响低难度与中、高难度文本分级的主要词汇因素为:MSTTR>常用词词频>实词数>词种数>单音节词长>词数>双音节词长>实词比,而中、高难度文本在词汇层面并无显著差异;这些词汇因素在不同长度文本中预测效力基本一致,在一定程度上表明这些词汇因素对文本难度的评测具有有效性和稳定性。     

Temptations of the flesch

A Briton's educational level, social class, sex and age all go to determine the degree of linguistic difficulty which he finds acceptable in reading matter. Tables show how these determinants of acceptability relate to readability as measured by word and sentence lengths.It is hypothesised that long sentences are difficult because comprehension depends upon combining cortical patterns evoked by grammatically related elements; but in long sentences the pattern evoked by one element may have decayed before the next related element is read. Long words may cause difficulty because they are generally the more precise words, requiring longer to categorise semantically; but the longer the search for a word's meaning, the more likely that the preceding context will be lost beyond recall.     

The influence of pictures on the derivation of meaning from children's reading materials

This discussion is a review of experimental work designed to determine whether pictures have an effect upon the derivation of meaning from the text printed in children's reading materials. Many reading schemes emphasize the use of illustration, but for a number of different purposes ranging from the provision of a referent for a specific word, to the provision of' contextual support, and the generation of motivation for reading. Experimental studies of the interactions between pictures arid words in the cognitive system go some way to supporting three uses of illustration in (a) the provision of meanings against which the print may be compared, (b) in the development of an organized understanding of the meaning of the text, and (c) in the enhancement of subsequent recall. The danger of distraction arising from the pictures has also been investigated, and been found to lead to decoding errors in young children presented with one word at a time. An analysis of mutual interference effects between pairs of pictures and words leads to the conclusion that the cognitive representations of meanings arc organized in a semantic system common to pictures and words. Thus, any decoding errors due to interference effects are of more than local importance—they can affect comprehension and influence the stored representation.     

Eye movement behaviour during reading of Japanese sentences: Effects of word length and visual complexity

Two experiments are presented that examine how the visual characteristics of Japanese words influence eye movement behaviour during reading. In Experiment 1, reading behaviour was compared for words comprising either one or two kanji characters. The one-character words were significantly less likely to be fixated on first-pass, and had significantly longer overall reading times, than the two-character words. In Experiment 2, reading behaviour was compared for two-kanji character words, for which the first character was either visually simple or visually complex (determined by the number of strokes). Visual complexity significantly influenced total word reading times and the probability of the individual visually simple/complex characters being fixated on first pass. Additional analyses showed no preferred viewing position for two-kanji character words. Overall, the study provides experimental evidence of an influence of specific visual characteristics of Japanese words on eye movement behaviour during reading, as shown by both fixation probabilities and reading times. The findings must be explained by processing at (or beyond) a visual level impacting on eye movement behavior during reading of Japanese text.     

试论我国新闻语言中字母词的易读性测量

本文以近几年大量出现在新闻语言中的字母词为例．探讨其对汉语新闻语言的易读性有什么影响，并对其做易读性测量。据此，提出关于提高字母词易读性的策略性规则。     

The effect on the doze test of changes in deletion frequency

Although the pseudo-random cloze procedure has been in use for some twenty-five years as a measure of readability and reading comprehension, little research has been carried out into the effect of deleting words from text more or less frequently. This paper reports on an experiment in which the deletion frequency variable was systematically studied. Every 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th word was removed from three texts of differing difficulty, and the effect studied. Significant differences among cloze tests resulted, but the differences were unpredictable. Deleting every 12th word did not necessarily result in an easier test than deleting every 6th 8th or 10th word. However, when only items identical to both cloze tests under consideration were compared, no significant differences were found. It appears that cloze items are, on the whole, unaffected by context greater than five words. Testers are warned that changing deletion frequency may result in a different measure of readability or comprehension.     

Towards a sight word list in Arabic

While the English language boasts a century of research into its most frequently-used words, no such attempt has ever formally been made in the Arab world. This pioneering study presents a list of 500 commonly-used words in the Arabic language based on compilations of words gathered from a number of popular reading series in Lebanon, spanning grades K to 3. This list can serve as a powerful tool for language teachers—who face several challenges posed by the inherent nature of Arabic in terms of diglossia, orthography and morphology—and provide them with a handy list of words for their pupils. The study has its limitations in terms of scope, breadth and the nature of the technology used for counting words. Nonetheless, it makes a number of recommendations for the future, including the development of a readability formula based on this list, the expansion of the scope of this word list and improvement to increase its technical accuracy.     

Graphophonemic awareness in adults after instruction in phonic generalisations

A number of studies have shown, counter-intuitively, that skilled adult readers find it difficult to correctly relate phonemes to graphemes in written words. In most adults this is of little consequence. However, teachers are required to show children how to relate phonemes to graphemes when teaching reading. This study investigated whether a brief period of instruction would improve the ability of adults in this task. Results showed a general level of improvement relative to controls. Exposure alone to the task had no effect. Improvement for the instructed group was not very large and there was difficulty relating phonemes to graphemes which had more than one letter. It may be that trainee teachers need instruction to improve knowledge of grapheme phoneme correspondence so that they can pass such knowledge onto young readers.     

英语阅读中的猜词法浅谈

生词在阅读文章中作为一道难以逾越的障碍,对学生理解文章造成了很大的困难,也使学生在阅读考试中很难得高分。本文主要剖析了学生在阅读中理解生词时存在的问题,并就如何提高英语阅读中对生词的理解能力提出了一些方法和技巧。     

如何培养和提高英语阅读理解能力

英语阅读理解能力是一种技能,它不仅是对大量知识和信息的积累,更重要的是对这些知 识和信息的获取和广泛运用。为了获得这种能力,我们就必须本着词不离句,句不离段,段 不离篇的原则对词汇、语句、语段和语篇进行科学的分析。这些方法和技巧会是阅读理解 中最为省时、省力,最有把握,效率最高的法宝,对提高英语阅读理解能力具有决定性的作 用。     

英语阅读教材难度两种评价方法述评

教材难度评价一直是阅读教学理论与实践关注焦点之一,多年来已形成以难度系数法和水平评估法为主导的两种评价方法。前者通过句长测量句法难度,通过词长或词频测量语义难度,得出文本的阅读难度值;后者则根据“文本”因素,凭主观经验判断材料的难度。本文旨在介绍比较两种方法异同,探讨如何利用这两种方法改进我国大学英语阅读教材的难度评价,从而在不增加教学投入情况下有效提高教学效率与水平。     

Acquisition of three word knowledge aspects through reading

A number of studies have shown that second or foreign language learners can acquire vocabulary through reading. The aim of the study was to investigate (a) the effects of reading an authentic novel on the acquisition of 3 aspects of word knowledge: spelling, meaning, and collocation; (b) the influence of reading on the acquisition of partial and deeper knowledge of the words; and (c) the relationship between word frequency and learning gains. The results show that there was significant improvement in all three aspects of word knowledge. The measuring instrument detected greater partial than deeper knowledge gains in word meanings and collocations. The greatest learning gains in all three aspects of word knowledge were demonstrated for the words that occurred between 11 and 20 times in the text. The findings suggest that incorporation of extensive reading into language learning programs can contribute to significant improvement of learners' vocabulary knowledge.     

Word frequency and readability: Predicting the text‐level readability with a lexical‐level attribute

Assessment of text readability is important for assigning texts at the appropriate level to readers at different proficiency levels. The present research approached readability assessment from the lexical perspective of word frequencies derived from corpora assumed to reflect typical language experience. Three studies were conducted to test how the word‐level feature of word frequency can be aggregated to characterise text‐level readability. The results show that an effective use of word frequency for text readability assessment should take a range of characteristics of the distribution of words frequencies into account. For characterizing text readability, taking into account the standard deviation in addition to the mean word frequencies already significantly increases results. The best results are obtained using the mean frequencies of the words in language frequency bands or in bands obtained by agglomerative clustering of the word frequencies in the documents – though a comparison of within‐corpus and cross‐corpus results shows the limited generalizability of using high numbers of fine‐grained frequency bands. Overall, the study advances our understanding of the relationship between word frequency and text readability and provides concrete options for more effectively making use of lexical frequency information in practice.