The Effects Of Text Difficulty On Reading Comprehension

The present study examines the effects of text difficulty on reading comprehension. The test was created by a reading comprehension text selected from TOEFL 1995. In order to vary the text difficulty, the text was simplified lexically, syntactically, and both lexically and syntactically. The text difficulty of the four versions (the original version plus the three modified versions) was measured through three ways: vocabulary difficulty (the percentage of the high frequency words), syntactic complexity (the T-unit length and clause per T-unit ratio), and readability (five readability formulae). The participants of this study consisted of 94 sophomores and 92 juniors majoring in English from 8 natural classes (4 from sophomore classes and 4 from junior classes). They were instructed to read the four different versions of the reading text and answer six short answer questions, and complete a self-report questionnaire.The results showed that (a) reducing the text difficulty (in general) has a positive effect on reading comprehension; (b) the lexical simplification and both lexical and syntactic simplification are accompanied by increases in reading comprehension while syntactic simplification slightly hinders the reading comprehension, which appear both in sophomores and juniors; (c) there are no statistically differences between the mean scores of the sophomores and juniors in the four versions; d) students'self-report of their performance is generally in line with their actual performance, but the correlation is weak. Compared with syntax, vocabulary has a more significant effect on their understanding. The findings from the present study have some implications for the teacher and syllabus designer who wish to select appropriate materials for learners at a variety of ability levels. It is also critical to test developers in selecting reading texts at appropriate levels.