PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) is the fourth assessment in the current trend series, following PIRLS 2001, 2006, and 2011. There were 61 participants in PIRLS 2016, including 50 countries and 11 benchmarking entities (e.g., regions of countries as well as additional grades or language groups from the participating…

This study investigated three techniques designed to increase the chances that second language (L2) readers look up and learn unfamiliar words during and after reading an L2 text. Participants in the study, 137 college students in Belgium (L1 = Dutch, L2 = German), were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, forming combinations of two…

What kind of influence does the structure of an educational hypermedia system have on the way its users understand its contents and organize the knowledge they acquire through its browsing? In this article, this already much discussed question, situated at the boundary between semiotics and cognitive science, is revisited in the light of results…

This study investigates whether or not the factor structure of reading comprehension is invariant across large, nationally representative samples of 14-year-old students from four different countries. The data from French-speaking Belgium, Hungary, Italy, and the United States were collected as part of the Reading Literacy Study of 1990-91,…

The authors evaluated the effectiveness of explicit reading comprehension strategies instruction, followed by practice in teacher-led whole-class activities (STRAT), reciprocal same-age (STRAT + SA) peer-tutoring activities, or cross-age peer-tutoring activities (STRAT + CA) on 2nd and 5th graders' reading comprehension and self-efficacy…