Toward developing a standardized Arabic continuous text reading chart.

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology and Optometry
• Linguistics and Psycholinguistics

Background:

• Near visual acuity is crucial for oculo-visual assessments.
• Continuous text reading charts are vital for measuring reading acuity and performance.
• A standardized Arabic version of such a chart is currently unavailable.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create a set of Arabic sentences with equal readability.
• To facilitate the development of a standardized Arabic continuous text reading chart.

Main Methods:

• 109 Arabic sentence pairs were initially created, matched for readability and length.
• 53 adults and 16 children participated in sentence validation.
• Reading speed (CWPM, SLWPM) and errors were measured to select final sentences.

Main Results:

• 45 sentence pairs were selected based on defined reading speed and error criteria.
• For adults, average reading speeds were 166 CWPM and 187 SLWPM, with 0.21 errors per pair.
• For children, average reading speeds were 61 CWPM and 72 SLWPM, with 1.71 errors per pair.

Conclusions:

• The 45 selected Arabic sentence pairs demonstrate high comparability.
• These sentences are suitable for constructing a standardized Arabic continuous text reading chart.