Kemper, S., Jackson, J. D., Cheung, H., & Anagnopoulos, C. A. (1993). Enhancing older adults' reading comprehension. Discourse Processes, 16(4), 405-428.

Kemper, S.; Jackson, J.; Cheung, H.; Anagnopoulos, C.

1993

Kemper, S., Jackson, J. D., Cheung, H., & Anagnopoulos, C. A. (1993). Enhancing older adults' reading comprehension. Discourse Processes, 16(4), 405-428.

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The causes of difficulties in older adults' reading ability are examined. Eighteen texts from a wide range of published material were analyzed for variation along parameters of complexity, including mean sentence length (in words), propositional density, the number of syntactic clauses per sentence, & developmental level. Ss (N = 60, aged 62-90) read the texts aloud & answered multiple-choice questions. Reading times were converted to words-per-minute rates. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated the significance of working memory & verbal ability & an important significant effect of both developmental level & propositional density on comrehension & reading rates. Suggestions on text modification for older readers based on these findings are made, & an sample revision of a text is provided. A comparison group of college students (N = 30) was also tested, but no text measure analyzed here was found to significantly affect their comprehension or reading rates.

Older adults' reading difficulty, as measured by a test of comprehension and words-per-minute reading rate, appears to be due to the use of propositionally dense sentences and complex syntactic structures

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