%0 Journal Article %T The Impact Of The Complex Noun Phrase In Reading Comprehension Of English Scientific Texts %A Benassi %A Cecilia M %A Flores %A Silvia del P %A Sobrero %A Mar¨ªa E %A Stefa£¿uk %A Mar¨ªa L %A Benassi %A Maria C %A Mayol %A Cristina E %J Revista de ciencia y tecnolog£¿-a %D 2011 %I Scientific Electronic Library Online %X this work is a pioneering experience in educational research at the school of exact, chemical and natural sciences. the approach to the text is three-levelled: semantic, morphological and syntactic and the aim is to help students avoid word-for-word translation and overuse of the bilingual dictionary. problems in the comprehension of complex lexical units have been identified as a major issue in the literature and also by our research team. this project is framed in the qualitative-quantitative paradigm. the population consisted of two 40-student groups (an experimental and a control group) chosen randomly. results of this work confirm our hypothesis that students exposed to greater theoretical instruction of the complex noun phrase (cnp) are more efficient readers. although the explicit teaching of the cnp does not appear linearly correlated with the general comprehension of texts as a whole, it is reflected in a better quality of reading comprehension. %K three-levelled approach %K complex lexical units %K explicit teaching %K reading strategies %K background knowledge. %U http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1851-75872011000200002&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en