A Comparative Study Of Readability Between The Reading Texts Of High School English Textbooks And The English Reading Texts Of Hubei College Entrance Examination

Textbooks are the main materials for students to acquire systematic knowledge in school,and also the main resources for teachers to carry out teaching tasks.Selecting the suitable teaching materials with the proper level of difficulty significantly affects the realization of teaching objectives.Readability is an important index to measure the difficulty of texts.Since reading texts make up a great proportion and play an important role in high school English textbooks and National Matriculation English Test(NMET),it is of critical importance to study the readability of texts in textbooks and test papers.The readability study of textbook texts can not only provide constructive suggestions for textbook writers to revise and perfect textbooks,but also guide teachers and students to use textbooks more reasonably and effectively.In addition,the College Entrance Examination(CEE)is the most important high-stake examination in China.The study on the readability of reading texts in the CEE English papers is helpful for teachers to promote the professional growth and development,and correctly understand and utilize the guiding role of college entrance examination.In recent years,studies on the readability of English textbooks have emerged one after another.Some domestic scholars have also begun to study the readability of test texts,especially the readability of the texts in CEE English papers and in college English tests such as CET-4 and CET-6.Although a few scholars have carried out consistency studies on the readability of texts in textbooks and related exams,there are still few studies on the readability of the reading texts in the new high school English textbooks and those in NMET in the recent five years.In addition,the influence of readability of reading texts on students’ reading scores has not been discussed yet.Based on the background mentioned above,this research is conducted to clarify the following questions.(1)What are the traits of the reading texts’ readability indices found in NMET and in the textbooks utilized in Hubei Province? What degree of consistency do they share?(2)How are students’ reading test scores impacted by changes to the college entrance exam’s reading text readability index?The study illustrates the research results on the readability of texts at home and abroad,especially of textbooks and papers.The Flesch Reading Ease formula is adopted from several formulas to analyze the readability indexes of 35 texts taken from7 books for senior middle schools in Hubei province and 25 texts taken from NMET in Hubei province in recent five years(2018-2022).Besides,100 students from three classes in Grade 3 in a senior middle school are asked to participate in the reading comprehension tests taken from NMET for the 5 years one by one in no more than 40 minutes.The scores for the tests are collected afterwards.To ensure reliability,the scores of the same part for these 100 students in another 3 formal tests are also collected and added to the study.Then SPSS is employed to study the data collected.The following are the findings of the study:(1)The findings showed that the readability of the selected reading texts in high school English textbooks is relatively high,with an average readability index of65.6,and the readability of the 35 articles varies little.The average readability of texts for the five-year NMET(2018-2022)is 62.95,while readability of the 25 texts varies greatly.Generally,there is minimal difference in average readability between the 35 reading texts selected from the seven textbooks and the 25 reading texts selected from NMET for five years,with the former slightly higher than the latter.In terms of stability,there is a bigger difference in the readability of the texts in NMET than that in textbooks.(2)Data analysis shows that there is a significant connection between students’ performance in English reading comprehension tests and the readability of selected reading materials,which presents a strong linearity,that is,students score higher with the increase of the readability of the selected reading texts.Based on the research result above,this study puts forward some suggestions for the compilation and revision of textbooks as well as the use of textbooks.Firstly,the authors and revisers of textbooks should take into account the cognitive and learning rules of students in the arrangement of the length and the topics of the reading passages,which should be consistent with the development of students’ reading ability and reading speed.Secondly,teachers should use the textbooks flexibly,adjust the teaching order appropriately,and select the materials provided by the textbooks according to the actual situation of students;when teachers decide texts as reading materials and test materials,readability should be included as one of the standards.