摘要：In their survey of literacy attainment in the primary grades in rural India, ASER (2011) found a mismatch between the high expectations of textbooks and the reality of student abilities. This paper examines the readability of English textbooks used in the primary grades in English-medium schools. Using the text analysis tool Coh-Metrix, it found differences on four parameters — text length, narrativity, type-token ratio, and use of anaphora—between the commercial textbooks and the new government textbooks. The commercial textbooks use texts to teach language by manipulating linguistic variables, whereas the new government textbooks focus on the story. The results are discussed in terms of the educational philosophies and assumptions of the two types of organizations, and recent directions in textbooks.
