The Effect of Transformational Simplification on the Reading Comprehension of Selected High School Students
Open Access
- 1 December 1972
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Reading Behavior
- Vol. 5 (4) , 273-281
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10862967209547063
Abstract
Transformational-generative grammar theory has prompted several studies on the reading comprehension of variously transformed sentences. The results have shown that verbal noun phrases, noun and relative clauses, subordinate clauses, as well as the number of modifiers embedded on any noun headword, all combine to complicate reading comprehension. This study compared two identical groups of 12th grade students, reading two versions of five prose selections. One version had simplified all of the previously mentioned structures, maintaining a twelve-word average sentence length. The other version was taken as used in The Davis Reading Test. Both groups were tested by multiple-choice questions from the reading test and by cloze-tests. The results showed a significant achievement on the multiple choice test and on three of five cloze tests for the simplified-version readers.Keywords
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