The concept of readability has had a variable history, moving from a position where it was considered as a very important topic for those responsible for producing texts and matching those texts to the abilities and needs of learners, to its current declining visibility in the education literature. Some important work has been coming from the USA…

This report reviews the research on text-based interest, defined as those elements within texts that create interest for the majority of readers. Three issues are covered: (1) what kinds of information are considered interesting, both theoretically and empirically; (2) what effects popular strategies for creating interest have on learning…

Investigates effects of text coherence and active engagement on students' comprehension of textbook information. Finds a continuum of increased performance from original silent text, to original text with thinking aloud, to revised text read silently, and finally revised text with thinking aloud. (SR)

Shows how a number of readability measures developed in English were applied to a textbook written in Hindi. Emphasizes that the more recent approaches to readability that focus on syntax, conceptual difficulty, and organization are a teacher's best help in selecting materials for students. (SR)

A study provided students with relevant background knowledge and tested the effects of this knowledge on two versions of a text. The two text versions were four original segments of text from a fifth-grade social studies textbook about the period leading to the American Revolution and their revised versions from an article in "Reading…