A Comparison of the Readability of Vocational Agriculture Reference Books with the Reading Ability of the Students using them

Abstract

TEACHERS OF vocational agriculture often complain that their students do not understand what they read. In vocational agriculture, as in other high-school subjects, reading is one of the most effective and efficient tools of learning. However, the usefulness of this tool is lost if the material to be read does not reasonably match the capabil ity of the reader. If the material is too difficult, the student will not comprehend; if it is too sim ple, the student may be insulted and/or bored. In either case, learning suffers. Few studies have been reported which attempt ed to match the readability of text or reference materials with the reading ability of high-school students. Although the readability of a large num ber of agricultural reference materials has been reported, no extensive study was found which compared their readability with the tested read ing ability of the students actually using them.