An evaluation of four high school basic literature series : a study of readability

The purpose of this study was to comprehensively evaluate four high school basic literature series. The research involves calculated readability scores on eighty high school literature passages and checked the reinforcements of new vocabulary words in 240 stories. The readability scores were dirived by using the Harris-Jocobson readability formula and the new vocabulary words introduced in each story were listed on the Worksheet for Analysis of Instructional Materials Beyond Readability Scales Revised (Schindler 1991). Although several of the books were calculated to be within the confidence intervals suggested, the new vocabulary words are almost never reinforced appropriately in any of the sampled textbooks.