READABILITY INDEXES AND DIDACTICS TEXTS: A MATTER TO BE DISCUSSED

Abstract

The presente paper aims to discuss the adequation of texts from textbooks for the 5^th to the 9^th grades using Readability indexes to each text. Learning to read is one of the greatest challenges the school faces and there are many studies that point to the various aspects which involve reading and the reader. Among them we highlight the difficulty level of the didactic texts because it is still a matter with less attention in Brazil. According to this perspective, the research question we make is as follows: Are the texts from textbooks made for the 5^th to the 9^th grade students adequate to this grades? The main objective is to measure the Readability level of texts, as well as to evaluate its formal aspects qualitatively. In order to measure the Readability leve, the tool “Coh-Metrix-Port”, developed by Scarton e Aluísio (2010), based on the original tool “Coh-Metrix”, created for texts in English, was used. The results point to a great distance between the grade in which the students are and the texts which the students find on textbook, then the majority of the texts reaches levels that rates them among the highschool level and even among undergraduate level. Further and deeper investigations must be conducted to verify to which point didactic texts can be an obstacle for learning to read and learning in general.