Reading Comprehension Difficulty as a Function of Content Area and Linguistic Complexity

Abstract

Effects of proportion of Latin suffixes and of Content Area upon newspaper article comprehension of eighth graders, as measured by cloze procedure, were investigated using a 3x3 factorial design. Statistically reliable mean differences were obtained between cloze test performance on Science and T. V. ?Theatre passages and be tween such performance at High versus Medium and Low levels of Latin suffix density. The difference in mean performance across Content Areas is explained in terms of other linguistic factors--particularly differential density of prepositions. READING COMPREHENSION may be viewed as a function of the reader's language competence, the subject matter of the language message, and the syn tactic and morphological complexity of the language message itself. It has been generally recognized (6) that comprehension is differentially affected by ma terial in different Content Areas. In terms of the above conception of comprehension this effect may be a function of the necessary background information required of the S, the author's writing style, the vo cabulary specif ic to certain Content Areas, the inter ests and attitudes of the reader or listener concern ing the various subject matters of Content Areas, and the linguistic and morphological complexity with which passages in different Content Areas are generally generated (3, 5, 2). The purpose of this study was to determine whether