WHAT MAKES A TEXT A SLOW OR FAST READ? SPEED BUMPS AND PASSING LANES LAURA S. TORTORELLI MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY LITERACY RESEARCH ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE CARLSBAD, CA DECEMBER 2, 2015

PURPOSE AND RATIONALE How are text characteristics related to fluent reading? Common Core State Standards for the early grades Greater text complexity Greater genre variety

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

TEXT COMPLEXITY IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES (MESMER, CUNNINGHAM, & HIEBERT, 2012) Word complexity Sentence complexity Discourse structure

WORD COMPLEXITY (MESMER, CUNNINGHAM, & HIEBERT, 2012) Words Well-traveled ground decodabilityfrequencylength Less well- traveled ground semantic features

SENTENCE COMPLEXITY (MESMER, CUNNINGHAM, & HIEBERT, 2012) Sentences Well-traveled ground length Less well- traveled ground syntax “There are buildings where many people live and work.” “Many people live and work in the buildings there.”

DISCOURSE STRUCTURE (MESMER, CUNNINGHAM, & HIEBERT, 2012) Discourse structure New ground genrecohesion

READABILITY FORMULAS Word ComplexitySentence Complexity Formula Word FrequencyWord LengthSentence Length Source Dale-Chall X XDale & Chall, 1948 Flesch-Kincaid XXFlesch, 1948 Gunning Fog Index X XGunning, 1952 Forcast X Sticht, 1973 Fry XXFry, 1968 Lexile X XMetaMetrics, 2000 Powers-Sumners-Kearl X X Powers, Sumners, & Kearl, 1958 Smog Index X McLaughlin, 1969 Spache X XSpache, 1953 Note: Adapted from “Can Readability Formulas Be Used to Successfully Gauge Difficulty of Reading Materials?” by J. C. Begeny and D. J. Greene, 2014, Psychology in the Schools, 51, p Copyright 2014 by Wiley. Summary of Readability Formulae Components

COH-METRIX TEXT EASABILITY ASSESSOR (MCNAMARA, LOUWERSE, CAI, & GRAESSER, 2005) Provides automated text analysis of hundreds of variables Based in research on psychology, computer science, linguistics, and education Assigns z scores based on the Touchstone Applied Science Associates (TASA) corpus of texts

COH-METRIX Z SCORES Word Concreteness – the extent to a word can be seen, felt, tasted, and/or smelled Syntactical Simplicity – a measure of syntactical organization within a sentence Narrativity – the extent to which a passage follows characters through a series of actions Referential cohesion – the repetition of ideas and words throughout the passage Deep cohesion – the presence of logical and temporal connectives in a passage

COH-METRIX MEASURES OF TEXT COMPLEXITY Words Less well- traveled ground semantic features word concreteness Sentences Less well- traveled ground syntax syntactical simplicity Discourse structure New groundgenrenarrativitycohesion referential cohesion deep cohesion Mesmer et al. model Coh-Metrix z scores

THE PRESENT STUDY

RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.What characteristics of texts are associated with lower reading rates (speed bumps) after controlling for reader factors? 2.What characteristics of texts are associated with higher reading rates (passing lanes) after controlling for reader factors?

DATA Readers 22,349 2 nd grade students from 387 public schools in Virginia No identified disabilities 50.1% were male 55.5% white, 26.6% black, 10.7% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 4.8% other or two or more races Average age = months 7% receiving ESL services Texts Expository passages on science topics Primer-6 th grade level All passages read with comprehension

METHODOLOGY Multilevel modeling in HLM-7 Nesting passage readings in children Advantages Control for sources of variance at the reader level Explore sources of variance at the text level Level-1 Model WCPM ti = π 0i + π 1i *(GRADELEVEL ti ) + π 2i *(NARRZ ti ) + π 3i *(REFCOHZ ti ) + π 4i *(DEEPCOHZ ti ) + π 5i *(WDCONZ ti ) + e ti Level-2 Model π 0i = β 00 + β 01 *(FEMALE i ) + β 02 *(NONWHITE i ) + β 03 *(WRI i ) + r 0i π 1i = β 10 π 2i = β 20 π 3i = β 30 π 4i = β 40 π 5i = β 50

MEASURES Readers Gender (binary, 0 = male) Race (binary, 0 = white) PALS 1-3 WRI scores Texts Passage grade level (based on readability formulae) Coh-Metrix z scores Word concreteness Narrativity Referential cohesion Deep cohesion *Syntactical simplicity had to be dropped for reasons of collinearity

CHARACTERISTICS OF PASSAGES Passage Grade Word Concreteness Narrativity Referential Cohesion Deep Cohesion A Bear Cub in Spring Primer Where Do Animals Live? 1st Nature’s Magicians 2nd The World of Birds 3rd Animals of the Night 4th Fossils 5th Sloth for a Day 6th

RESULTS

Fixed EffectCoefficientSE Intercept 78.35*0.86 Female a 2.86*0.26 Nonwhite a -4.40*0.26 Word recognition 5.51*0.05 Grade level -0.66*0.15 Word concreteness 4.91*0.28 Narrativity 2.73*0.32 Referential cohesion 13.85*0.30 Deep cohesion 0.77*0.15 a = binary variables. *p <.0001 Reader variables Text variables

DISCUSSION

Grade level (as expected) SPEED BUMPS

GRADE LEVEL Low Grade Level Shorter and more frequent words Shorter, simpler sentences High Grade Level Multisyllabic, rarer words Longer, more complex sentences (e.g., more passive voice) Their skeletal structure is made for hanging upside down instead of standing upright. They live in the den all winter.

Word concreteness Narrativity Referential cohesion Deep cohesion PASSING LANES

WORD CONCRETENESS High Word Concreteness Many specific nouns Compare/contrast structures Lists of conceptually related items, etc. Content vocabulary Low Word Concreteness Idiomatic language Hypotheticals High frequency words How are nests, caves, and houses alike? Wouldn’t you like to be a sloth for a day?

NARRATIVITY High Narrativity Organized around main “characters” Follow a series of actions Animate subjects and action verbs Low Narrativity Organized around a concept List of facts “To be” and passive verbs Sloths hang in trees for days at a time. They munch away at the delicious leaves that surround them. Fossils are preserved remains of things that once lived, often millions of years ago. The word fossil comes from a Latin word meaning “to dig up.”

REFERENTIAL COHESION High Referential Cohesion Repeat key content words, subjects, verbs, and pronouns Explicitly link one sentence to the next Low Referential Cohesion Sentences do not explicitly repeat key words or concepts. Emphasize variety Animals live in many kinds of homes. They can live inside with people. They can live outside, too. Some animals live in nests. They can make nests in trees. Their calls may be peeps or screams or lovely songs. They may live in forests or in cities.

DEEP COHESION High Deep Cohesion Includes not just what happens but how, when, and why Low Deep Cohesion Neutral connectives Leave gaps that must be filled in with inference or prior knowledge In time, the eggs will hatch. When the eggs hatch, you will not believe your eyes. A caterpillar, not a butterfly, will come out of the egg. Spring has come and they need to find food.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORY AND FUTURE RESEARCH Text complexity is complex and multi-dimensional Readability at the word and sentence level is only part of the picture Semantic content, genre, and cohesion have the potential to ease or complicate reading

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS No measures of child vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, or prior knowledge of the passage content Limited number of passages Only expository texts

QUESTIONS? Laura Tortorelli Assistant Professor, Elementary Grades Reading Teacher Education Department College of Education Michigan State University