Given the deficiencies of readability formulae as reliable tools for measuring text readability in educational settings, this study aims to offer a new measure to improve the current methods of testing the readability levels of texts through the incorporation of the newly-developed concept of emotioncy. To this end, a group of 221 students were…

The purpose of this nonequivalent, control group, pretest-posttest design study was to evaluate the effectiveness of leveled book programs on first-grade students' oral reading fluency rates and comprehension levels. This study was conducted over a 10-week time span with four first-grade classes. All of the students in each class were given a…

The "Common Core State Standards/English Language Arts" include the ability to become increasingly more capable with complex text over the school career, redirecting attention to the measurement of text complexity. While suggesting multiple criteria, the Standards offer a single measure of text complexity--Lexiles. Additional…

This paper considers whether the sources of linguistic complexity presented within texts targeted at 1st-grade readers have increased, decreased, or held steady over the 52-year period from 1962 to 2013. A collection of more than 450 texts is examined. All texts were selected from Grade 1 textbooks published by Scott Foresman during the targeted…