Examining text complexity in the early grades

Fitzgerald, Jill; Elmore, Jeff; Hiebert, Elfrieda H.; Koons, Heather H.; Bowen, Kimberly; Sanford-Moore, Eleanor E.; Stenner, A. Jackson

doi:10.1177/0031721716647023

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(12 reference statements)

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“…Over the last 75 years of the century, they found, 3rd-grade texts actually showed a slight increase in complexity, not a decline. An analysis that attended only to texts for beginning readers showed that the increase in the complexity of texts for beginning readers was especially great from the 1960s to the mid-2010s (Fitzgerald et al, 2016). During that time, the number of challenge words in 1st-grade readers, which Jill Fitzgerald and colleagues (2016) defined as words that are predicted to occur after age seven in the oral-language environments of children, went from 1.5 per 1,000 words in 1962 to 46.9 per 1,000 words in the mid-2010s.…”

Section: New Insights From Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

What does research say about the texts we use in elementary school?

Smith¹,

Hiebert²

2022

Phi Delta Kappan

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Much of the attention given to literacy, of late, has focused on ensuring that students can read, without consideration to what they are given to read. Kristin Conradi Smith & Elfrieda H. Hiebert discuss four general aspects of the texts used in elementary classrooms – text complexity, text type (narrative versus informational), text format (paper versus screen), and diversity of people presented in the text. They review recent research on each of these text characteristics and then make suggestions for how to apply the research in the classroom.

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Section: New Insights From Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

What does research say about the texts we use in elementary school?

Smith¹,

Hiebert²

2022

Phi Delta Kappan

Self Cite

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“…Limited exposure of reading activities seems to be the contributing factors of this issue. The exposure itself can be influenced by various aspects such as age and years [1]. Such lack of exposure tend to cause low motivation in reading.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Picture Book: Its Effect on EFL Reading Comprehension

Wardini¹,

Megawati²,

Astutik³

2021

Proceedings of the 1st Paris Van Java International Seminar on Health, Economics, Social Science and Humanities (PVJ-ISHESSH 20

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Selecting instructional media is a prominent aspect in classroom activities. Combining pictures and text is considered effective for teaching and learning foreign language. Accordingly, picture books are meaningful media that use integration of words, illustration, and design. In the context of language learning, teachers need to be selective of using or making picture books in term of shape, content, and genre of the text. Focusing on the genre, narrative text plays an important role in school curriculum since local culture can be inserted to build students' cultural awareness. Regarding the gap showing few studies given more attention on teacher made picture book for reading skill, this paper investigates the effect of picture books toward student's English reading comprehension. Pre-experimental design was carried out, and this study involved thirty-five secondary school students as sample, especially the tenth graders. The instrument of this study were tests. The tests were constructed and tried them out to produce valid items. The data were analyzed by using ttest after the fulfillment of statistical assumption was checked. For the media, they were validated by two experts before implementation. The result shows that there is a significant effect of using picture books to students' ability in understanding narrative texts more comprehensively.

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Understanding the influence of text complexity and question type on reading outcomes

et al. 2018

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In the current study, we examined how student characteristics and cognitive skills, differing levels of text complexity (cohesion, decoding, vocabulary, and syntax), and reading comprehension question types (literal, inferential, critical analysis, and reading strategy) affected different types of reading outcomes (multiple-choice reading comprehension questions, free recall, and oral reading fluency) in a sample of 181 native English-speaking adolescents (9 to 14.83 years). Results from item response theory one-parameter models and multilevel models suggested that different cognitive skills predicted performance across the three reading outcomes. After controlling for student characteristics and cognitive skills, text complexity negatively impacted reading outcomes, particularly oral reading fluency and free recall. Critical analysis and inferential questions emerged as the most difficult types of comprehension questions. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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Examining text complexity in the early grades

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

What does research say about the texts we use in elementary school?

What does research say about the texts we use in elementary school?

Picture Book: Its Effect on EFL Reading Comprehension

Understanding the influence of text complexity and question type on reading outcomes

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