Lesespanne

Lesespanne is a term used in German-language discussions of reading processes to denote the maximum length or amount of continuous text a reader can process with adequate comprehension in one reading session. The concept highlights the balance between processing demands and working memory and is related to the broader idea of cognitive load during reading.

Etymology and usage: the word combines Lese (reading) and Spanne (span or interval). It is analogous to the English term "reading span" used in psycholinguistics, though in German-language literature it often appears in discussions of text difficulty, reader fatigue, and text design.

Definition and scope: Lesespanne is typically operationalized as the number of sentences or words presented sequentially before a recall or comprehension task is required. It can be derived from self-paced reading paradigms, naturalistic reading tasks, or eye-tracking data, where limits are inferred from processing measures.

Measurement methods: experiments vary, including self-paced reading with subsequent recall, cloze tasks, or targeted comprehension questions. Eye-tracking metrics such as fixation duration, word skipping, and regressions can indicate when processing becomes inefficient, signaling the span limit.

Applications and significance: the concept is used in educational testing to tailor texts to readers’ capacity, in accessibility design to avoid cognitive overload, and in research on reading development, aging, and cross-lage reading strategies. It informs text design, such as sentence length distribution and paragraphing, to support sustained comprehension.

Relation to related concepts and limitations: Lesespanne intersects with working-memory capacity, cognitive load theory, and reading stamina. Limitations include substantial individual variation, genre effects, and content familiarity, all of which can influence the measured span and its practical interpretation.