Despite much attention having been paid to foreign language (FL) reading and related variables such as self-efficacy, relatively few studies have focused on young learners, and even fewer on storybooks, arguably the commonest genre read by children worldwide for language learning. As FL learning commences at a young age in many contexts globally,…

This study investigates the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between polysemous word knowledge and reading comprehension among bilingual students (n = 107) followed from seventh to eighth grade. Standardized tests were used to measure decoding skills, broad vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. Data about students' polysemous…

Background: Detecting reading comprehension difficulties is challenging because many factors are involved in comprehension ability. Various reading comprehension tests can be used to detect difficulties but often do not yield the same results. Method: Our aim was to analyse the agreement between three commonly used standardised reading…

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 study examined (a) the identification of various reading groups across languages in Chinese (L1) adolescents learning English as a second language (ESL), in terms of their word-reading and reading comprehension skills, (b) overlap in reading group membership across languages, and (c) the performance of the various reading groups on…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to investigate the initial feasibility of the Communication Matrix Professional Development Program (CMPDP), an online program created to help educational professionals teaching students with complex communication needs. Method: A one-group pretest-posttest design was employed with 102 educational professionals…

Theory of Mind (ToM), as a relevant aspect in children's socio-cognitive development, has been widely studied. Some results have suggested that bilingual children have an advantage over their monolingual peers in development of ToM. However, there is less research regarding the predictive role of ToM in performance of oral and reading…

This study was conducted to examine the factors that influence informational text comprehension and to determine how these vary for students with higher and lower component skills. The sample included 177 students in grades 3-5. Regression analyses were used to predict informational text comprehension with decoding efficiency, vocabulary…

Black middle school students in the United States continue to perform poorly on standardized reading achievement tests in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups. The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of a vocabulary-focused test preparation program for Black middle school students. The theoretical framework…

The aim of our study was to examine the relationship between access to the mental lexicon, working memory and knowledge of English (L2) vocabulary. Analyses were undertaken amongst monolingual speakers of Polish (26 with dyslexia, 24 without) who studied English as a second language as part of their compulsory educational programme at school. We…

This study investigated the relation between teachers' (N = 22) use of sophisticated and complex language in urban middle-school classrooms and their students' (mean age at pretest = 11.51 years; N = 782; 568 language minority and 247 English only) vocabulary knowledge. Using videotaped classroom observations, teachers' speech was transcribed and…

In order to be successful in an educational setting, a student must acquire a particular register of language specific to academia, or an academic register. It cannot be acquired through ordinary social intercourse. It is specific to school. Acquiring the academic register is the greatest challenge English Learners (EL) face during their academic…