title: Toward developing a standardized Arabic continuous text reading chart.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Near visual acuity is an essential measurement during an oculo-visual assessment. Short duration continuous text reading charts measure reading acuity and other aspects of reading performance. There is no standardized version of such chart in Arabic. The aim of this study is to create sentences of equal readability to use in the development of a standardized Arabic continuous text reading chart.
  
  
  METHODS
  Initially, 109 Arabic pairs of sentences were created for use in constructing a chart with similar layout to the Colenbrander chart. They were created to have the same grade level of difficulty and physical length. Fifty-three adults and sixteen children were recruited to validate the sentences. Reading speed in correct words per minute (CWPM) and standard length words per minute (SLWPM) was measured and errors were counted. Criteria based on reading speed and errors made in each sentence pair were used to exclude sentence pairs with more outlying characteristics, and to select the final group of sentence pairs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Forty-five sentence pairs were selected according to the elimination criteria. For adults, the average reading speed for the final sentences was 166 CWPM and 187 SLWPM and the average number of errors per sentence pair was 0.21. Childrens' average reading speed for the final group of sentences was 61 CWPM and 72 SLWPM. Their average error rate was 1.71.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The reliability analysis showed that the final 45 sentence pairs are highly comparable. They will be used in constructing an Arabic short duration continuous text reading chart.
authors.affiliation: School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of Waterloo, Canada. Electronic address: balsama@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Balsam
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Alabdulkader
authors.affiliation: School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of Waterloo, Canada.
authors.forename: Susan Jennifer
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Leat
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D018912:Arabs; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011932:Reading; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014787:Vision Tests / Q000379:methods*; D014792:Visual Acuity; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Acuity chart; Agudeza visual; Arabic; Continuous text charts; Lectura; Reading; Tabla optométrica; Tablas de textos continuos; Visual acuity; Árabe