[New standardized texts in Brazilian Portuguese to assess reading speed--comparison with four European languages].

PURPOSE To develop standardized texts in Brazilian Portuguese to assess reading speed and compare performances among four European languages. METHODS 10 texts were designed by a linguistic expert at the level of a sixth grade reading material (reading ages 10-12 years) and were matched for length and syntactic complexity, according to the syntactic prediction locality theory of Gibson. Normally sighted native speaking volunteers aged 18-35 years read each text aloud at random. RESULTS The reading speed was on average 1100 +/- 167 (standard deviation) characters per minute. Only small differences were found between the measured reading speeds of the 10 texts, and these differences were not statistically significant in groups of at least 6 texts. The mean reading speed in age-matched volunteers in Finnish was: 1263 +/- 142; French: 1214 +/- 152; English: 1234 +/- 147; and German: 1126 +/- 105. CONCLUSIONS The authors developed a set of standardized, homogeneous, and comparable texts in Brazilian Portuguese. These texts will be a valuable tool to measure reading speed for repeated measurements and in international studies in the field of reading and low vision research.