Delineating the Profile of Good and Poor Readers

Abstract This article aims at profiling and comparing good (GR) and poor readers’comprehension (PRC). Through a word reading task and a reading comprehension task, 49 good readers and 37 poor readers were identified among 336 students in the 8th grade of public schools in the southern Brazil, not including the intermediate group in the analysis. The investigation of the profile used a self-completion written questionnaire. The results showed difference in the groups’ reading experience and a positive correlation between reading comprehension performance and number of books read by the students in a year. The study verifies that the research on reading habits might help to comprehend the differences in good and poor readers’ profiles. Future research may improve the instrument and expand it to direct not only theoretical studies but also practical studies of clinical and pedagogical intervention.