We conducted two experiments to assess the alignment between Generative AI (GenAI) text personalization and hypothetical readers' profiles. In Experiment 1, four LLMs (i.e., Claude 3.5 Sonnet; Llama; Gemini Pro 1.5; ChatGPT 4) were prompted to tailor 10 science texts (i.e., biology, chemistry, physics) to accommodate four different profiles…

Reading texts may serve as a vital source of informational content and language knowledge for second language (L2) learners, which is known as the dual relevance of L2 reading (Han & D'Angelo, 2009). Text complexity, however, influences the two, determining to a great extent whether the dual outcome is attainable. Drawing on Complex Dynamic…

Comparing language tests and test preparation materials holds important implications for the latter's validity and reliability. However, not enough studies compare such materials across a wide range of indices. Therefore, this study investigated the text complexity of IELTS academic reading tests (IRT) and IELTS reading practice tests (IRPrT).…

Large language models (LLMs) offer an opportunity to make large-scale changes to educational content that would otherwise be too costly to implement. The work here highlights how LLMs (in particular GPT-4) can be prompted to revise educational math content ready for large scale deployment in real-world learning environments. We tested the ability…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the continuity of reading passages of Korean high school English textbooks with the 2015 Revised National Curriculum using CohMetrix, a software that analyzes English texts in a range of linguistic features. Twentyone English textbooks were analyzed: 11 High School English, five High School English I,…

Age of acquisition (AoA) is a measure of word complexity which refers to the age at which a word is typically learned. AoA measures have shown strong correlations with reading comprehension, lexical decision times, and writing quality. AoA scores based on both adult and child data have limitations that allow for error in measurement, and increase…

Research has identified a number of linguistic features that influence the reading comprehension of young readers; yet, less is known about whether and how these findings extend to adult readers. This study examines text comprehension, processing, and familiarity judgment provided by adult readers using a number of different approaches (i.e.,…

The paper provides an example of how immigration is constructed by receiving societies as a comprehension or language problem that requires special solutions. It focuses on the application of Easy-to-Read, a simplified register currently in expansion which addresses different groups of people with intellectual disabilities, to immigrants in Spain.…

Although a reader's text-level comprehension is affected by the comprehension of individual sentences in a text, little attention has been paid to the difficulty of sentences. This study investigates whether measures (features) of text difficulty affect the "gradience" observed in sentence difficulty judgments. We examine two traditional…

Texts are routinely simplified for language learners with authors relying on a variety of approaches and materials to assist them in making the texts more comprehensible. Readability measures are one such tool that authors can use when evaluating text comprehensibility. This study compares the Coh-Metrix Second Language (L2) Reading Index, a…

The present paper introduces and evaluates a readability measurement method designed for learners of EFL (English as a foreign language). The proposed readability measurement method (a regression model) estimates the text readability based on linguistic features, such as lexical, syntactic and discourse features. Text readability refers to the…

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…

Many programs designed to compute the readability of texts are narrowly based on surface-level linguistic features and take too little account of the processes which a reader brings to the text. This study is an exploratory examination of the use of Coh-Metrix, a computational tool that measures cohesion and text difficulty at various levels of…

Air Force training depends to a considerable extent on the transmission of information through textual materials. This study was performed to define and clarify methods for increasing the capability of written materials to transfer information to the reader. Variables drawn from current psycholinguistic and intellective function literature were…