The Structure of Argumentative Texts Written by Hebrew Speaking Children in Primary Schools: Relationships Between Writing and Reading Comprehension

This experimental study aimed to investigate the relationship between text structure (TS) in argumentations written by Hebrew-speaking primary school children and their reading comprehension (RC) performance. A total of 293 students from second to fifth grade wrote an argumentative text and completed two RC tasks. These tasks consisted of a passage followed by multiple-choice questions targeting different levels of reading comprehension: literal, inferential, evaluative, and gap-filling questions. The students’ scores on the RC tasks were calculated, and their arguments were classified into different levels of complexity based on various structural components. Significant associations were found between text structure and grade level, with the most complex texts produced by students in the highest grade. However, there were fluctuations in the elaboration of text components across different grade levels. Correlations between reading comprehension and text structure were found to be weak and dependent on grade level. Children who scored higher on inferential reading comprehension questions tended to produce texts that were better structured and provided lengthier support for the writer’s claims.