Background: The language that children are exposed to in their early years is enhanced by children's picture books. It is important to better characterise this input, and recent research has begun to explore corpora of narrative picture books. However, previous research has been restricted by methodological limitations that make it difficult to…

Phonics and fluency instruction are primarily viewed as elementary-centric skills that do not have a place in middle school, which may neglect the usefulness this type of instruction provides to older students. Literacy centers are one method for successfully teaching these skills in a middle school setting. The purpose of this paper is to provide…

This experimental mixed-methods study explores what happens to student Lexile scores when they use closed captioning. Since the emergence of closed captioning tools in the 1980s, closed captioning has become more mainstream and easier to access today than at any other time in history (Rickelman et al., 1991). Thus, it is through harnessing this…

The acquisition of vocabulary and narrative comprehension are key abilities for children's literacy development and to potentiate cognitive and academic skills from early ages. The aim with this study was to analyse the effects of a 6-week integrated active-lessons programme based on playful games, vocabulary, and narrative comprehension.…

Encouraging children to read extensively has been a widely recommended approach to developing reading. The National Reading Panel published a review study reporting inconclusive findings regarding the benefits of such an approach. In this systematic narrative synthesis review, we provided an update and an extension of the NRP's review. We examined…

Fluency, vocabulary building, making inferences, expanding background knowledge, and metacognitive thinking are reading skills taught in schools across the country. Which of these do ELA teachers consider to be most important? It is not known which of these five areas Western Pennsylvania teachers believe has the most impact on comprehension…

Many studies have demonstrated the crucial role of vocabulary in predicting reading performance in general. More recent work has indicated that one particular facet of vocabulary (its depth) is more closely related to language comprehension, especially inferential comprehension. On this basis, we developed a training application to specifically…

This research aimed to study the theories and principles for improving Chinese reading and writing skills based on second language acquisition theory and investigated the factors affecting Chinese major students' reading and writing skills for university students in northeast of Thailand. The sample groups were 386 Chinese language major students…

The development of emergent literacy, a precursor to formal reading, has been linked to subsequent conventional literacy skills in Chinese children. The factors important for acquiring Chinese reading skills, such as phonological and morphological awareness, have primarily been studied in primary school children rather than preschoolers. The…

Several in-depth and experimental research have been carried out on the positive results of extensive reading (ER) over the past several years in the areas of ESL/EFL. However, several of the studies include limitations that raise doubts about the claimed positive outcomes. The current study adds to the small amount of well-regulated research by…

This study focused on the development of the word level classification vocabulary learning (WCVL) system and the measurement of its effectiveness in terms of the potential of the system and learners' improvement in learning English material through the WCVL system. There are many ways to improve reading comprehension for those learning English as…

This study aimed to investigate the effects of integrated intensive and extensive reading instruction (IIERI, hereafter) on Thai primary school students' English reading ability and to find out the students' opinions towards the instruction. Eleven Thai students studying at the primary education level were purposefully selected to participate in…

Students with learning and behavioral problems often face enormous barriers to successful school performance. When the language of instruction is not the students' first language and they are already in secondary school, this is compounded by additional challenges, especially with regard to vocabulary and reading -- subjects that are fundamental…

Stealth assessment has been successfully embedded in educational games to measure students' learning in an unobtrusive and supportive way. This study explored the possibility of applying stealth assessment in a digital reading platform and sought to identify potential in-system indicators of students' digital learning outcomes. Utilizing the user…

District leaders in a large urban school district in central Florida wanted to examine the efficacy of a new curriculum designed to enhance the word knowledge of grade 5 students so as to improve reading achievement. The new curriculum, called Word Knowledge Instruction (WKI), consists of 15-minute lessons 4 days a week for 20 weeks. The lessons…