Effect of vocabulary simplification on the reading comprehension of students in the 1th and 2th cycle of elementary education

• Grant number: 16/23700-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2017
• End date: December 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Speech Therapy
• Principal Investigator: Clara Regina Brandão de Avila
• Grantee: Giovanna Lima dos Santos
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of text manipulation, based on the simplification of vocabulary and readability, on the reading comprehension performance of students from 2nd to 4th year of elementary school. Method: Cross-sectional, analytical, case-control study. Participating 150 schoolchildren enrolled in public education from the second to the fourth school year, of both genders and meeting the inclusion criteria: (1) Absence of related complaints or indicators of sensory alterations, neurological, behavioral or cognitive disorders; (2) Signature of the Informed Consent Form and Child Assent Term. Participants will be distributed in: TO Group (Original Text) - composed of students who will be initially exposed to the original text (TO - Condition 1) and then to the text with semantic and readability facilitation (TO - Condition 2); TS Group (Simplified Text) - composed of students who will be exposed initially to the simplified text regarding vocabulary and readability (TS - Condition 1) and then to the original text (TS - Condition 2). The retellings will be obtained by recording, transcribed and later evaluated according to the ideas and the recounted links. A point will be assigned for each identified information. The totals of ideas and links will be computed and the pattern of retelling will be identified. The resulting data will be tabulated and conducted for statistical analysis. Expected Results: The TS Group's performance in reading comprehension is expected to be facilitated. It is envisaged that the facilitation effect will reflect more on the microstructure measures, manifested by the greater number of ideas retold by the TS Group. It is hypothesized that the facilitation of vocabulary will promote access only to the local sense of information, facilitating the decoding of the words and the ready access to their meaning, which would have an effect on the understanding of the propositions read and their maintenance in the phonological operational memory. (AU)