The components of text that influence reading times and recall in skilled and less skilled college readers

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Abstract
The present study examined the components of text that predict reading times and recall in skilled and less skilled college readers. Skilled and less skilled college students read two narrative and two expository passages from a computer terminal at their own rate. The results demonstrated that skilled readers read faster and recalled more than did less skilled readers. The variance in reading times was largely accounted for by word‐decoding and lexical‐access factors. Reading‐ability differences in reading time were best accounted for by word‐decoding factors and the number of new concepts active in working memory. The variability in recall scores was primarily accounted for by importance level of the idea units in the text. The results indicate that sensitivity to the structure of text was not a source of reading‐ability differences in reading times and recall for either narrative or expository texts. The results suggest that reading‐ability differences in prose processing result from word‐decoding factors and the efficiency of working‐memory operations.

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