The study investigated how well Swedish adolescents recognize the meaning of derived words in English and whether this knowledge is determined by learner proficiency, word frequency, or affix type. Participants were 88 school students in two proficiency groups: 39 advanced 12th graders and 49 intermediate 9th graders. Two tests of receptive…

This paper illustrates the role of metalanguage in an explicit literacy instruction to talk about the forms and functions of scientific genres, particularly the genre of explanation. In the context of science, metalanguage refers to the technical terms for talking "about" scientific language using words like law, hypothesis, and…

This study examined developmental profiles of reading fluency and reading comprehension in Grades 1 to 9 (ages 7 to 15) in a large Finnish sample (N = 2,518). In addition, early predictors of the profiles were analyzed with respect to kindergarten cognitive skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, rapid automized naming [RAN], number…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect(s) of syntactic knowledge and syntactic awareness on adolescents' reading comprehension. Method: One hundred and seventy-nine, 9th and 10th grade students' syntactic awareness, syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension skills were assessed. In addition, other known contributors to…

Background: Connectives, such as "because" or "although," explicitly indicate how to semantically link individual segments of a text. Knowledge of connectives has been shown to significantly contribute to variance explanation in comprehension of English and Dutch texts, particularly amongst monolingual students and students…

This article draws from an exploratory study of science teachers' experiences when utilising learners' home languages in teaching grade 9 learners in three South African high schools. This research investigated teacher use of learners' home languages in science instruction, with a particular focus on the affordances and challenges of using…

We examined the predictive value of early spelling for later reading performance by analyzing data from 970 U.S. children whose spelling was assessed in the summer following the completion of kindergarten (M age = 6 years; 3 months). The word reading performance of most of the children was then tested after the completion of Grade 1 (age 7;5),…

Visualisation plays a critical role in the teaching and learning of mathematics word problems. It is an essential tool for enabling learners to create meaningful mental pictures necessary for solving mathematical problems. Appropriate visualisation requires good reading skills, English proficiency and an understanding of mathematical vocabulary,…

In this study, we analysed the relationships between word decoding, vocabulary knowledge, meta-cognitive knowledge and reading comprehension in low-achieving adolescents and examined whether the strength of these relationships differed between Grade 7 and 9 students and between monolingual and bilingual students. Tests were administered to 328…

This article reports an action research that intended to study to what extent students shape their writing skill in English through the use of a virtual room. As the study, we randomly selected six ninth graders in high school from thirty two students at a Colombian private institution. Three instruments were used, namely, interviews, students'…

According to a 2010 report by ACT, "Only 31 percent of students are performing at a college-and-career reading level with respect to successfully understanding complex text" (p. 5). This statistic demonstrates what educators know: Middle and high school students face numerous challenges in reading, understanding, connecting to, and…

Many children struggle to learn to read, and these difficulties can persist well into adulthood. To address this problem, researchers have investigated the processes that underlie reading. An informative body of work has thus identified basic skills (e.g., decoding, vocabulary knowledge) as necessary for successful reading. Researchers also have…