This study examined the effect of variations in syntactic structure on oral reading. Forty fourth graders and 26 college students read aloud one of two narrative passages. Each passage contained three instances of a target structure (noun + participle) and three instances of a less complex control structure (verb phrase of a subject-verb-object clause). Identical words comprised corresponding target and control structures. Subjects also read aloud individual sentences containing the target and control phrases from the passage they had not read. With respect to the findings for children, significantly more disruptions in oral reading occurred on target structures in the stories than on control structures; in the sentences, there was no difference between target and control structures in the number of disruptions. Also, significantly more disruptions were found on target structures in the stories than in the sentences. For adults, few disruptions occurred regardless of structure or task. Results support the hypothesis that ability to read less common syntactic structures is related to the development of competent use of those structures.
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