Effects of syntactic simplification on reading comprehension of Elementary School students

摘要

Purpose To investigate the effects of Syntactic text simplification on the reading comprehension performance of Elementary School students. Methods Cross-sectional, analytical, case-control study. Study participants were 112 students regularly enrolled in the 2 nd -4 th grades of public Elementary Schools. Participants were divided into two groups: Group OT – students exposed to the original expository text and Group ST – students exposed to the simplified expository text. The groups were matched for accuracy and did not differ with respect to reading comprehension capacity. The simplified text was obtained by submitting the original text to the following syntactic modifications: separation of complex sentences, simplification of discursive markers, suppression of active voice and anaphora, inversion of clause order with displacement of the main clause to the beginning of the sentence, and exclusive use of the subject-verb-object order. Text simplification was verified using the Coh-Metrix-Port computational tool. Comprehension analysis through retell of the texts read determined the total of ideas (central and detailed) and retold links. Results Comparative analysis of the groups identified differences between the total of central, detailed and retold ideas, with the best performance observed in the Group ST. Students from 3 rd and 4 th grades benefitted the most from syntactic simplification. Conclusion Text syntactic simplification, verified by the Coh-Metrix-Port parameters, facilitated the micro-structural text processing of 3 rd and 4 th grade students, promoting greater retention of ideas.