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Thinking through research and the science of reading

October 4, 2023

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Text Types and Their Relation to Efficacy in Beginning Reading Interventions

August 17, 2023

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Patterns of Silent Reading Rate and Comprehension as a Function of Developmental Status, Genre, and Text Position

July 12, 2022

This study examines how comprehension and rate in silent reading—the construct of comprehension-based silent reading rate (CBSRR; Spichtig et al., 2016)—are affected by grade, genre, and text position. Each of 63 second graders and 52 fourth graders read 2 grade-specific passages (one narrative, one informational) in four sections, each followed by 4 comprehension questions. Only the main effect of Grade for comprehension was not significant. All other main effects showed moderate or small differences with higher performances by fourth graders, higher performances on informational than narrative texts, and better performances as students moved through sections of a text. Percentages of students attaining CBSRR decreased across the four sections of both genres and at both grade levels. Students’ rates of reading with comprehension were somewhat faster than oral reading norms. For students persisting in the task, silent reading rates were at or above Spichtig et al.’s norms. Implications of findings are discussed, as are questions that arose about text complexity and silent reading patterns.

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Does One Size Fit All? Exploring the Contribution of Text Features, Content, and Grade of Use on Comprehension

July 11, 2022

Readability systems have once more become prominent in policy and practice because of recommendations in the Common Core State Standards. This study revisited two features of current readability systems: their generalizability to all grade levels and to all content areas.

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An Analysis of the Features of Words That Influence Vocabulary Difficulty

July 11, 2022

The two studies reported on in this paper examine the features of words that distinguish students’ performances on vocabulary assessments as a means of understanding what contributes to the ease or difficulty of vocabulary knowledge.

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Does Text Complexity Matter in the Elementary Grades? A Research Synthesis of Text Difficulty and Elementary Students’ Reading Fluency and Comprehension

July 11, 2022

This is the accepted (not copy-edited) manuscript of an article forthcoming in Educational Psychology Review.  Quotations should be lifted only from the published version. Prompted by the advent of new standards for increased text complexity in elementary classrooms in the United States, the current integrative review investigates relationships between the level of text difficulty and elementary students’ reading fluency and reading comprehension. After application of content and methodological criteria, a total of 26 research studies were reviewed. Characteristics of the reviewed studies are reported including the different conceptualizations of text, reader, and task interactions. Regarding the relationships between text difficulty and reading fluency and comprehension, for students’ reading fluency, on average, increased text difficulty level was related to decreased reading fluency, with a small number of exceptions. For comprehension, on average, text difficulty level was negatively related to reading comprehension, although a few studies found no relationship. Text difficulty was widely conceptualized across studies and included characteristics particular to texts as well as relationships between readers and texts. Implications for theory, policy, curriculum, and instruction are discussed.

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Investigating the Validity of Two Widely Used Quantitative Text Tools

July 11, 2022

In recent years, readability formulas have gained new prominence as a basis for selecting texts for learning and assessment. Variables that quantitative tools count (e.g., word frequency, sentence length) provide valid measures of text complexity insofar as they accurately predict representative and high-quality criteria. 

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