| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺中教育大學 === 教育學系課程與教學碩士班 === 103 === The purpose of this study was to analyze the lexical coverage, readability, and content of graded readers for junior high school students.
The targeted graded readers were four graded reader series published by four publishers, which were Oxford, Pearson Longman, Random House, and Far East. The four graded reader series chosen in this study were Bookworms by Oxford, Young Readers by Pearson Longman, Magic Tree House by Random House, and Very Easy Readers by Far East. The lexical coverage and readability of each book were analyzed by using RANGE Program and SMOG readability formula. Besides, the contents of each book were analyzed to evaluate the topics and the publication features. The main findings were as follows:
1. The lexical coverage of higher level graded readers is not always larger than that of lower levels.
2. The GSL 2000 high frequency words take up a relatively high coverage in the
four series graded readers.
3. Magic Tree House series have higher coverage of using not-in-the-lists words
(words not included in GSL and AWL) than the other series.
4. The readability indexes of every graded readers in each series are close.
5. The readability index is not necesarrily increasing in higher levels.
6. Higher readability indexes are not always related to longer context.
7. Detective stories and adventures are poular topics among the four series.
8. The cover pictures are mostly figure drawings.
9. The pictures in the contents play an important role in the graded readers.
According to the findings, some suggestions were offered for the editors of graded readers, junior high school English teachers, and the references for future studies.
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