Structured Literacy (SL) approaches are often recommended for students with dyslexia and other poor decoders (e.g., International Dyslexia Association, 2017). Examples of SL approaches include the Wilson Reading System (Wilson, 1988), Orton-Gillingham (Gillingham & Stillman, 2014), the Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program (Lindamood &…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress and the Common Core State Standards require students, starting in elementary school, to read an increasing amount of informational text (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). Students with learning disabilities, however, typically struggle with expository text and require even more direct instruction…

When a reader produces a response to a written text (the observed response) that is not expected by the listener, the result is called a miscue. Using psychosociolingustic analyses of miscues in the context of an authentic text, miscue analysis provides evidence to discover how readers read. I present miscue analysis history and development and…

In his 2016 article, "What Can Readers Read after Graded Readers?" (EJ1098660), Jeff McQuillan provided data to show that there is an adequate amount of reading material that can be read at or above 98% vocabulary coverage to provide sufficient input to acquire most of the word families from the 2,000- to the 9,000-word-family levels.…

In this meta-analysis of 45 studies involving students in grades 2-12, the authors present evidence on the effects of text structure instruction on the expository reading comprehension of students. The meta-analysis was deigned to answer two sets of questions. The first set of questions examined the effectiveness of text structure instruction on…

In this meta-analysis of 45 studies involving students in Grades 2-12, the authors present evidence on the effects of text structure instruction on the expository reading comprehension of students. The meta-analysis was deigned to answer 2 sets of questions. The first set of questions examined the effectiveness of text structure instruction on…

Discourse-based approaches to EFL reading have shifted the students' passive role to become 'text resistant'. This paper examines the extent to which Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) enhances analytical reading practices in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading context among Preparatory Year students at Najran University. The paper…

Reading comprehension is multidimensional and complex. The persistent challenges children, adolescents, and even adults face with reading comprehension call for concerted efforts to develop assessments that help identify sources of difficulties and to design instructional approaches to prevent or ameliorate these difficulties. Doing so requires…

The purpose of the study was to address possible text complexity shifts across the past six decades for a continually best-selling first-grade core reading program. The anthologies of one publisher's seven first-grade core reading programs were examined using computer-based analytics, dating from 1962 to 2013. Variables were Overall Text…

The goal of the present study was to examine the efficacy of learning a text structure strategy (TSS) for improving reading comprehension and recall for second language (L2) learners, as well as to test for transfer of the strategy to the native language (L1). University L2 learners of English completed a five-session course on using the TSS to…

Reading comprehension in the content areas is a challenge for many middle grade students. Text structure-based instruction has yielded positive outcomes in reading comprehension at all grade levels in small and large studies. The text structure strategy delivered via the web, called Intelligent Tutoring System for the Text Structure Strategy…

Reading and comprehending content area texts require learners to effectively select and encode with hierarchically strategic memory structures in order to combine new information with prior knowledge. Unfortunately, evidence from state and national tests shows that children fail to successfully navigate the reading comprehension challenges they…

Expository text offers particular challenges to the reader because of the abstract and unfamiliar concepts that it presents. In order to solve these problems in reading classes, students should be taught the hierarchical structure of the expository text and the interrelationships among ideas. This is what experts in this field refer to as text…

This study examined the relation between exposure to shared book reading and Spanish-speaking English learners' (ELs'; n = 102) narrative production and comprehension skills in kindergarten (mean age = 6.12 years). Audio- and videotaped book-reading sessions in Spanish were coded in terms of teachers' extratextual talk and gestures. Using a silent…

In the late 1970's, Durkin's landmark study showed that less than 1% of elementary classroom reading instruction was dedicated to comprehension strategies because teachers were not explicit in their instruction. This qualitative study explored the types of questions posed by elementary and middle school teachers to elicit students' responses and…