Reading & Answering Processes of Secondary School Students for Poetry & Prose

The Total Reading Time for the reading process shows significant differences between poetry and prose. Students need more time to construct a situation model of a poetry text compared to a prose text. Furthermore, the Total Reading Time for the reading process of poetry and prose, significant differences have also been demonstrated between grades 8 & 12, while the values for year four fall between these two extremes. 12th graders make (more) effort to build a situation model from a poetry text by connecting parts of the text to each other and to their background knowledge.

For the response process, the Total Reading Times between poetry and prose differ significantly for an average text-before-question AOI. After reading a question, 10th and 12th graders spend considerably more time reading a text-after-question poetry AOI. The reading process, as measured, does not appear to be related to answering text comprehension questions; no difference can be demonstrated in the reading process of students who answer a question correctly and students who answer a question incorrect.

The longer reading times for poetry text AOIs compared to prose text AOIs are supported by findings from the interviews, namely that students from all grades find the poetry texts more difficult than the prose texts.