The effects of sentence lenght, word lenght and vocabulary items on readability of Turkish text in 4th and 5th grade students

This study examines the effects of the variables the average word length, the average sentence length and frequency of use of the vocabulary on the readability of Turkish texts. The sample of this study was 30 Turkish texts on the level of the fourth and fifth grades of primary education. Ten students on corresponding grades read the texts and answered five open-ended questions about the contents of the texts. The readability scores of the texts were determined by calculating the average scores which were obtained by evaluating the answers. Average sentence lenght, average word lenght and frequency of use of vocabulary in the texts were analyzed using a program called ?electronic Turkish text analysis? developed in the process of this study.While the readability scores were dependent variables, average sentence lenght, average word lenght and frequency of use of vocabulary in the texts are independent variables. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to understand the impact of independent variables on readability. Results show that the independent variables estimated the readability of a text at a rate of 22%. According to this result, it can be said that there could be different variables that estimate the readability of a text more strongly. When the t-test results about significance of regression coefficients were analyzed, it is obvious that the variable of vocabulary use rate is more significant predictor on the readability score than the other two variables. Consequently, the variable of vocabulary usage rate can be considered as a variable that must be taken into consideration in future researches about readability.