Purpose: The study explored the distinct contributions of domain-general, behavioral, and reading-specific executive function to reading comprehension, and whether reading fluency and vocabulary moderate or mediate the relations between executive function and reading comprehension. Method: Data were collected from 129 4th and 5th graders (35.66%,…

Background: Studies of syntactic comprehension and reading comprehension use a wide range of syntactic comprehension tests that vary considerably in format. The goal of this study was to examine to which extent different formats of syntactic comprehension tests measure the same construct. Methods: Sixty-nine Grade 4 students completed multiple…

This study examined the psychometric properties of two common frameworks for scoring retell data (i.e., clause- and idea unit-based methods) among 86 third- through fifth-grade students with dyslexia. At the beginning and end of the school year, students read two grade-level R-CBM probes (one orally and one silently) and engaged in a retell…

Background: This study examined how children's ability to understand what they read on screens is impacted by two specific digital features: hovering hyperlinks and scrolling. Methods: The participants were 75 English-speaking children (M = 9.90 years, SD = 0.90 years) in Grades 3 to 5 who participated in an online research study. Using a…

Students at an elementary school in urban Georgia scored below grade level in comprehension on the state's end-of-the-year assessment. School leadership implemented Lexia Core5, a blended learning program. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the effect of the Lexia Reading Core5 program on the reading comprehension skills of…

Background: South Africa's PIRLS 2021 outcomes revealed that learners struggle with comprehension. The reasons for poor reading need to be identified and addressed to stem this challenge. Aim: This study assessed Sesotho Grade 4 learners' knowledge of simple and complex letter sounds, their oral reading fluency and the relationship to their oral…

Previous studies uncover that vocabulary knowledge may be related to compound structure awareness (the awareness of relational structure embedded in compound words), and they both contribute to reading comprehension. Yet, limited studies have examined the dynamic relationship between vocabulary knowledge and compound structure awareness, or their…

Reading comprehension is among the most challenging and complex skills to teach and research. Doing both well is critical to improving the reading comprehension proficiency of 67% of grade 4 students in U.S. public schools who scored below basic on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress. This Chapter presents Knowledge Acquisition…

Inferencing is an important and complex process required for successful reading comprehension. Previous research has suggested instruction in inferencing is effective at improving reading comprehension. However, varying definitions of inferencing is likely impacting how inferencing instruction is implemented in practice and inferencing ability is…

Background: The high number of poor-performing learners in reading comprehension in South African schools is a concerning factor that calls for studies to mitigate this problem. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) of 2021 indicates that about 81% of South African Grade 4 learners who participated, failed to reach the…

Students in the 3rd and 4th grade often encounter what has been called a reading "slump" when their class curriculums increasingly ask them to comprehend and learn from texts. Students are more likely to struggle if they have not been offered sufficient opportunities to build world and domain knowledge and engage in challenging…

"Magnetic Reading" is an evidence-based reading comprehension program for students in grades 3 through 5 built on four pedagogical pillars: knowledge-rich learning, culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy, scaffolds to support learner variability, and data to inform instruction. This study uses a prospective matched comparison…

Background: Although Zimbabwe has performed quite well on Grade 6 SACMEQ literacy assessments compared to other African countries, reading levels are generally low and there is little research on reading literacy in Zimbabwean primary schools. Aim: Grade 3 and 4 learners' reading comprehension (RC), accuracy and speed in oral reading fluency (ORF)…

This study aims to evaluate word callers attending the fourth grade of primary school in terms of rapid naming, verbal working memory, and attention skills, and to examine the effect of the reciprocal teaching approach on the development of word callers' reading comprehension skills. The study group consisted of 25 word callers and 21 independent…

Eye-movement technology has been often used to examine reading processes, but research has seldom examined the relationship between the reading process and comprehension performance, and whether the relationships are similar or different across grades. To investigate this, we conducted a 3-year longitudinal study starting at grade 4, with 175…