بهمن گرجیان

This research investigates the impact of textual coherence factors on the improvement of reading comprehension in elementary school students. It aims to analyze the influence of grammatical, lexical, and connective elements on students' ability to recall stories, utilizing the framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL). Textual coherence, as one of the key components in understanding and conveying meaning in educational texts, plays an important role in improving reading comprehension. This study uses a qualitative method and analyzes 64 stories from elementary school Persian textbooks to identify and analyze textual applications and their effects on students' recall of the stories. Data were collected through questionnaires based on Halliday and Matthiessen's (2014) SFL. A researcher-made questionnaire was designed, and 150 students were recruited to answer the items on a 5-point Likert scale. Results showed that grammatical, lexical, and connective coherence effectively improve students’ text recall. In comparison, the lexical features are more effective than connective and grammatical features, facilitating students’ recall of the stories in Persian textbooks. This study reveals that teachers at the elementary level need to focus on textual coherence, especially grammatical and connective, and then lexical features. Implications suggest that textbook designers focus on textual structures in designing educational textbooks since they affect students’ recall and improve their reading comprehension.