The purpose of the current study was to examine whether being interested in a particular text topic affects reading comprehension processes and products of skilled and less-skilled comprehenders...Show moreThe purpose of the current study was to examine whether being interested in a particular text topic affects reading comprehension processes and products of skilled and less-skilled comprehenders differently. Fifty-two upper elementary school children read six expository texts, three of which the topic of the text was rated as interesting and three of which the topic was rated as uninteresting. Eye-tracking was used to monitor the processes while reading. Reading comprehension products were assessed by two types of questions (i.e., literal and inferential), each designed to reflect a different level of comprehension. Students were also asked about how much knowledge they already had about each of the topics. The results indicated that being interested in a topic does not change reading comprehension processes of both skilled and less-skilled comprehenders, suggesting that they do not benefit from interesting topics compared to noninteresting topics. In addition, topic interest affected the amount of literal questions answered correctly. However, no such results were shown for inferential questions. With skilled comprehenders scoring better on both types of questions, and no interest topic x reading comprehension skill interaction being observed, this indicates that less-skilled comprehenders also do not benefit enough from an interesting topic regarding reading comprehension products. The results are discussed in the light of standards of coherence, cognitive abilities, and background knowledge.Show less
