Flexibility in reading literature

Previous research has shown that adolescent readers differ in their ‘online’ processing of literary texts. Differences were found in the extent to which these readers performed certain (meta)cognitive and affective activities while reading literary texts. However, readers might also differ in flexibility; that is, in the extent to which they vary their activities during reading. In this study we examined whether good and poor adolescent readers differ in flexibility. Nineteen Dutch students (ten known as good, nine known as poor literature readers) each read five stories while thinking aloud. Think aloud transcripts were analysed for the reading activities students performed. We used a multilevel model to estimate the mean changes in occurrence of activities during reading, as well as the variances between readers and stories. Results indicated that good readers were more flexible: they tended to change their reading activities both within and between stories, whereas poor readers showed more static patterns of response.