In the area of foreign language reading research not enough is known of the extent to which foreign language readers can comprehend the texts in which textual signals are explicitly or implicitly marked, and in which the discourse mode varies from one type to another. This research investigates how Iranian undergraduate readers of English approach narrative, expository, and argumentative text types in which propositional relations have been explicitly or implicitly marked through connectors. Participants read passages of each text type in both their explicit and implicit versions. The readability, length, average word frequency, and learner level which are hypothesized to have affected the results of the previous studies were controlled. The results demonstrate significant differences between learner level, and the explicit and implicit versions. The results confirm the contributory effect of these markers in comprehension. Therefore, language teachers, testers, and materials developers need to further consider the relationship between textual signals and text types in devising appropriate materials and techniques to improve foreign language learners’ reading comprehension.

The objective of this research is to study and compare the effectiveness of rhetorical patterns on reading comprehension of Islamic Azad University students. The sample group includes 180 students of East Tehran Branch who were selected randomly. The subjects were randomly assigned into experimental groups. The instrumentation of the study included the texts and text comprehension questionnaire. The text included three versions of a single text, i.e. they had identical content but different schemata: descriptive (listing) pattern, explanation pattern, and analysis pattern. The collected data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA test. The results of this study failed to confirm the effectiveness of text type on reading comprehension.

This study investigated if different response formats (test methods) measure reading comprehension of expository text differently. The study was conducted with 48 semester 6 TESL students at a university in Selangor, Malaysia. These students received an expository passage having descriptive rhetorical structure followed by three response formats, namely, incomplete outline, graphic organizer, and summary writing. Results from Repeated Measures two-way ANOVA indicated that high-achievers outperformed intermediate- and low-achievers across the three response formats. Moreover, the three groups achieved higher scores on incomplete outline and summary writing, respectively. However, graphic organizer appeared as the most difficult task as the respondents achieved the lowest score in this task.

Different approaches may be used in teaching or developing reading comprehension skills. The present study is an attempt to see if aesthetic transaction approach in reading literary texts can lead to better achievement in this regard. The effective and determining factors in reading comprehension of literary texts were not considered or investigated in a systematic, research-based and empirical way. The investigation of aesthetic transaction approach in reading literary texts not only helps to understand reading comprehension of literary texts more clearly, but it also provides understanding of reading comprehension in a foreign language. The methodology used in this study is descriptive-correlational with the use of Delphi technique to get more reliable results. The instruments being used are questionnaires with a sample consisting of 228 students of English literature and translation from Islamic Azad University (Karaj and Qom Branches). The findings indicate that there is a significant correlation between' aesthetic transaction' and reading comprehension of literary texts. Among the determining factors of reading comprehension of literary texts', attraction' of reading is indicated to be the most important one. The other results obtained show that the higher the level of difficulty of literary texts becomes, the higher the degree of aesthetic transaction is experienced. The results show the opposite for non-literary texts.

The main purpose of this research was to study and compare the different type’s texts and paragraphing among majoring in psychology and education. The sample group, who were selected through random sampling, was 300 students studying at state universities in Tehran. The subjects were randomly assigned into experimental groups after random sampling. The instrumentation of the study included texts, text comprehension questionnaire. The collected data were analyzing applying ANOVA test. The statistical analysis indicated that text paragraphing would increase comprehension.

One of the areas of language, now seen as part of language competence in the light of new theories of language proficiency, is textual competence with two subcomponents: coherence and rhetorical organization. The present study is an attempt to measure Iranian EFL learners' knowledge of rhetorical organization through structured and unstructured summary writing, and seeks to find out whether text type and test format affect learners' performance on summary writing tests. The validity and reliability of the two test formats are also compared with each other.The results obtained confirm the effect of text type and test format on learners' performance on a summary writing test verifying Kobayashi (2000) and Bachman's (1990) assertions about the effect of text structure and test method on learners' test performance. A significant interaction between text type and test format is also found. Concerning the validity and reliability of the two test formats, higher concurrent validity and inter and intra rater reliability indices are registered for structured summary writing. However, both test formats show a low face validity index.

The present study investigated the relationship between the reading comprehension of three types of text and the gender of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, several reading passages with the same length and readability were selected based on which a reading comprehension test was constructed on three different text types namely essay, history, and short story. After determining the validity and reliability of the reading comprehension test, it was administered to 62 male and female students who were at the same level of language proficiency based on their scores on the TOEFL Test. A one-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data, the results of which indicated that male and female EFL learners differ in their reading comprehension ability with females being better comprehenders of English passages. The results of a two-way ANOVA also showed that both males and females are better at comprehending essays followed by history and short story, i.e. different types of text are understood differently regardless of the gender of the subjects. The findings are interpreted to have direct implications for EFL teachers and instructors as well as syllabus designers and test developers.

This study attempted to investigate the effect of the reader's awareness of the cohesion elements simultaneously with his/her reading task, labeled as metacohesive awareness in this study, on the reading comprehension performance of the reader for different text types (i.e., academic, literary, and general English texts) across different proficiency levels. ANOVA analyses indicated that the subjects' language proficiency level had a significant effect on the subjects' performance. T-test results revealed that metacohesive awareness had a significant direct effect on the subjects' reading comprehension of the texts across lower language proficiency levels and that this effect was, however, reversed for the higher proficiency levels, especially for the proficient subjects. Interaction analyses disclosed no interaction effects, the only main effect belonging to language proficiency. Finally, the regression results indicated that the language proficiency level was a very good predictor of the subjects' scores on cohesion performance and text type performance.