Complejidad textual, vocabulario pasivo y comprensión lectora en escolares chilenos de segundo ciclo básico

The aim of this study is to determine to what extent text complexity and passive vocabulary comprehension influence global comprehension of texts and the specific reading skills the comprehension task entails. A quasi-experimental study was conducted involving 66 sixth grade students (11 and 12 years old). Two versions of the same test were developed and the difficulty level of each text was modified. Passive vocabulary comprehension was measured using the Picture Vocabulary Test designed for Chile (TEVI-R). The study data shows significant group differences regarding text complexity, but not associated to passive vocabulary comprehension when measuring comprehension globally. The multivariate analysis of variance shows significant results only in some univariate analyses, which are discussed in this study.