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…

Educators' reading comprehension instructional practices have been identified as 1 of the factors that contribute to learners' poor reading comprehension performance. To this end, several studies were conducted to identify and analyse educators' practices while teaching reading comprehension. As a result, the aim of the study reported on here was…

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…

Research suggests that developing deep understanding of text requires sustained emphasis on reading comprehension instruction and scaffolded strategy practices. However, although research has shown explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies to be effective, we know little about whether strategy instruction and use are part of…

Guided reading (GR) approach has been shown to have positive effect on reading fluency and comprehension. However, most studies on GR have focused on primary schools, specifically the Foundation Phase. Therefore, this study employed the GR approach to examine its possible effects on the reading proficiencies of Grade 9 English Second Language…

An investigation was conducted to help weak academic English learners in a public high school in Colombia, as they seemed to be facing a learning specific difficulty called dyslexia. A focus group of ten students from ninth and tenth grade was the beneficiaries of the design, implementation, and assessment of five multisensory activities to help…

Background: Owing to the dearth of reading practices within the South African literacy landscape, many learners neither engage in productive reading habits, nor exhibit a positive attitude towards English First Additional Language (EFAL) reading. Consequently, many learners experience reading challenges, which negatively impact on their academic…

This article reports the results of an experimental study on the relative effectiveness of the Paideia Seminar in improving the comprehension of poetry and decreasing reading anxiety. The participants (n = 50) were English as a foreign language (EFL) ninth grade learners enrolled in classrooms at a public school in Lebanon. The study employed a…

This paper reports the process of designing and partially implementing and evaluating a content-based and genre-oriented syllabus with a group of ninth graders at a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia. The syllabus sought to promote reading strategies in order to improve learners' comprehension of natural science texts. The results of this…

This research investigates how three female Nigerian high school students were taught to deploy critical multimodal literacy to interrogate texts and reconstruct unequal social structures. A class of ninth-grade students in an all-women school was given instruction through the analysis of how multiple modes were used to represent meanings in…

Commercial publishers have shaped reading and writing instruction in American schools through their interpretations of state-developed reading and writing standards and standards-aligned materials, which teachers then implement in English classes, including those serving multilingual learners. This paper uses microethnographic discourse analysis…

To study the role of reading in secondary schools and how it may be improved through computers, a year-long study was conducted to examine which of two methods of teaching reading skills, an instructor-led class vs. computer-assisted language learning (CALL), aided secondary students in improving the literal, inferential, and evaluative levels of…

As more English learners (ELs) are included in mainstream content classrooms at the secondary level, the need to understand how teachers collaborate to meet the particular instructional needs of ELs is essential. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study that investigated the collaborative work that engaged a group of literacy…

The volume consists of twelve classroom studies concerned with the implementation of learner autonomy in English classes. The individual studies range from primary school level to university level. They include studies on multi-media dictionary work, reading logs, peer correction, communication strategies, vocabulary learning strategies, oral…

The explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies has been proposed as a means to better prepare secondary school-aged students for today's information-dense, fast-paced, fast-changing global society, and to improve the academic performance of struggling adolescent readers. This proposition of a direct and positive impact of reading…