Improving fluency and reading comprehension for beginning readers of French?

International audienceLearning to read and comprehend a written text is crucial for a child’s happiness and success. However, a large proportion of children of primary school age encounter major difficulties in acquiring this skill. In this context, the aim of our study was to determine whether text simplification, a process of reducing the complexity of a text while retaining its meaning, can improve reading fluency and comprehension in children who are learning to read. In addition, we wanted to find out if poor readers or children with poor oral language skills benefit more from simplification than normal readers or children with good oral language skills? All children were presented with informational and literary texts either in its original or simplified version through an iBook application. The overall results seem to suggest that poor readers and children with weaker cognitive abilities benefit to a greater extent from text simplification