This research presents a novel reading fluency (rf) measurement formula that accounts for both reading rate and comprehension. Possible formulas were investigated with 68 participants in a strategic reading course in an IEP at a small Pacific Island university. The selected formula's scores demonstrated concurrent validity through strong…

The effects of extensive, timed, and repeated oral reading on 101 lower-intermediate Japanese university L2 English learners' reading rates and comprehension were investigated over one academic year. The participants were divided into four quasiexperimental groups: (a) Group 1 did extensive, timed, and repeated oral reading with prosody and…

This bibliometric study analyzed the research topic structure of the "Reading in a Foreign Language" ("RFL") journal in the past two decades. Using two well recognized bibliometric approaches, namely, the keyword co-occurrence analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis, the study examined author keywords and their co-occurrence…

This paper examines learners' fluency development in L2 silent reading rate and comprehension. In both L1 and L2 readings, a positive relationship between readers' silent reading rate and comprehension has not been as firmly established as theories might propose. Based on Wallot et al. (2014), the paper indicates the need to look at readers'…

Twenty adult ESL students at a community college participated in a semester reading intervention. Participants received a modified extensive reading treatment, and some participants received an additional repeated reading direct instruction reading intervention. The author examined the impact of the reading interventions on ESL students' reading…

In this study, I sought to investigate whether visuospatial working memory (VWM) explains individual differences in reading fluency growth. One hundred and thirty Japanese junior and senior high school students were administered the Mr. Peanut and reversed Corsi tasks, respectively as measures of VWM, followed by three waves of reading fluency…

Previous studies have found that phonological processing and vocabulary predict word reading. However, their predictive powers may vary according to reading experience and across scripts with different levels of transparency. In this study, the relationship between phonological processing, decoding, vocabulary and word reading was explored in two…

One of the challenges for the successful implementation of extensive reading (ER) programmes, especially in Asian contexts, stems from curricular factors where class time is often prioritised for tasks requiring the presence of a teacher. This paper investigates the role of extensive reading online (ERO), an alternative approach to traditional ER,…

This quasi-experimental study traces a 12-week reading fluency training program for elementary-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners at a Japanese university (N = 56). More specifically, this study examined whether a teaching intervention combining (a) extensive reading and practicing, (b) timed reading, and (c) repeated oral reading…

In this article, a three-phase mixed-methods study was conducted to investigate timed reading effects on Chinese university students' English as a foreign language (EFL) reading rate. First, two equivalent reading rate tests were designed and validated with 30 participants. Second, 81 university students from two intact classes participated in the…

Reading rate, usually measured in words per minute, is a common operationalization of reading fluency in second language (L2) research and pedagogy. However, the impact of word length is often not addressed. This paper presents two studies showing how the number of characters in a text influences L2 reading time, independent of word counts, within…

Thomas Cobb's 2007 applied linguistics paper, "Computing the Vocabulary Demands of L2 Reading" dealt with whether reading alone can build an adequate reading lexicon in a second language, or whether some sort of extra vocabulary training will normally be required. In the article, Cobb proposed that in the case of adult academic ESL…

Two groups of English as a second language students engaged in a fourteen-week repeated reading (RR) treatment: (1) a 3x group (n = 16), which engaged in three readings per session, and (2) a 5x group (n = 15), which engaged in five readings per session. Reading rate and background knowledge were measured at five points to assess the effect of…

In this response to Sakurai, Meredith Stephens agrees that Sakurai (2015) raises an important issue of which native English speaking teachers may be unaware; Japanese learners of English typically translate into Japanese while reading English. Sakurai explained, "It is speculated that Japanese students naturally translate English into…

The paper "The influence of translation on reading amount, proficiency, and speed in extensive reading" (Sakurai, 2015) outlined the first six years of the official English education system and policy in Japan. It then discussed the efficacy of extensive reading (ER) followed by a distinction between reading and translation. Previous…