The purpose of the current mixed-methods study was to investigate the effectiveness of a traditional and novel knowledge activation technique for supporting fifth and sixth graders' comprehension of exposition covering unfamiliar content. For the quantitative portion, 149 rural middle-school students were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions:…

Unfortunately, far too many American adolescents are unable to read proficiently. The science of reading suggests explicit instruction in both word identification and language processing skills should bolster reading proficiency, but most commercial reading interventions for secondary students focus exclusively on the latter skill area. This study…

The present study was conducted to explore how the relationships between reading comprehension constructs change according to word reading accuracy, as measured in a large convenience sample (n = 857) of school-aged students (Years 3-6) with reading difficulties. Multiple regression analyses containing interaction variables were conducted, to…

This study explores the reading strategies (RSs) of bilingual and monolingual young learners in their first and second languages (L1 and L2, respectively)--either Kazakh or Russian as the L1 and L2--and English as a foreign language (L3). It also examines the influence of RSs on the learners' performance on reading comprehension tests in the three…

Given the fact that the role of syntactic awareness skills on the acquisition of reading skills, we can see how important it is for children to acquire such skills and to solve the relevant problems. This study analyzes the syntactic comprehension skills of students diagnosed with dyslexia. A total of 50 students with dyslexia, 25 in fourth grade…

The range of teaching materials now available is becoming increasingly diverse. Despite this, however, the use and influence of textbooks in teaching still remains very high. When instructing reading comprehension, teachers often use textbooks as the basis for teaching in language lessons. Establishing a good match between textbooks and the skills…

Reading is regarded as one of the basic learning processes that provides multiple skills and abilities for daily life. The study reported on here arose from evidence of reading comprehension difficulties of middle school students in Colombia, and from reflection on the didactic strategies used for the promotion and teaching of reading. The purpose…

This study examines associations between writing instruction with a focus on explicit sentence syntax and reading comprehension in a sample of students receiving special education services. While the outcome data does not show direct causation between student enrollment in a treatment writing course using Systemic Functional Linguistics and…

Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new "science of reading" laws that require…

We examined sixth graders' detection of inconsistencies in narrative and expository passages, contrasting participants who were monolingual speakers (N = 85) or Spanish-English DLLs (N = 94) when recruited in pre-kindergarten (PK). We recorded self-paced reading times and judgments about whether the text made sense, and took an independent measure…

Purpose: Vocabulary intervention can improve comprehension of texts containing taught words, but it is unclear if all middle school readers get this benefit. This study tests 2 hypotheses about variables that predict response to vocabulary treatment on text comprehension: gains in vocabulary knowledge due to treatment and pretreatment reading…

The current study examined the extent to which sixth grade students used their pre-existing topic beliefs to guide comprehension of semantic ideas within multiple conflicting texts, and the sources providing them. Adolescents completed an inventory assessing their pre-reading topic beliefs one week prior to the study. During the study, students…

Teaching a homograph by using context clues is more effective than just teaching vocabulary separately. The goal of the study reported on here was to teach 12 homographs to d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing (d/Dhh) students in the sixth grade by applying metacognitive skills to understand the meanings and contexts in sentences. A single case design…

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students face great challenges in becoming proficient readers. Vocabulary knowledge is consistently considered to be an important factor affecting DHH students' reading ability. However, the mechanism that underlies the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in DHH students remains…

Relational reasoning [RR] is the ability to derive meaningful patterns within any information stream. Further, RR can be used as a knowledge activation technique before and during reading, guiding students to notice when their prior understandings are similar to, different from, or in conflict with the text at hand. The purpose of the current…