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Influence of Reading Level Difficulty on the Disfluencies of Normal Children

Stephen B. Hood
Raymond K. Tucker
Bowling Green State University, Ohio

This study assessed the effect of increasing the difficulty of reading material on the frequency and type of disfluency in the oral reading of normally fluent elementary school children. Eighty children participated in the study. Ten boys and 10 girls each, from Grades 3, 4, 5, and 6, read five 200-word passages, corresponding to one grade below their school placement, the grade of their school placement, and one, two, and three grades above their school placement. Results indicated a significant increase in total moments of disfluency and four specific types of disfluency as the difficulty of reading material increased. The data revealed a tendency for "stuttering" disfluencies to increase more in frequency than "normal" nonfluencies. Results are discussed with respect to theoretical and experimental implications.