Background: South Africa's PIRLS 2021 outcomes revealed that learners struggle with comprehension. The reasons for poor reading need to be identified and addressed to stem this challenge. Aim: This study assessed Sesotho Grade 4 learners' knowledge of simple and complex letter sounds, their oral reading fluency and the relationship to their oral…

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of the reading comprehension program prepared for primary school fourth grade students on students' reading comprehension skills. In this context, students' attitudes toward reading, reading motivation, fluent reading skills and reading comprehension strategies were considered in the study. The…

Readers often prioritize processing and comprehension of information perceived as relevant to a particular intention. Using a repeated-measurement study, we investigated how readers' prior beliefs and external reading perspectives influence processing and comprehension of belief-relevant texts on two socioscientific controversies. University…

This article asserts that a carefully administered informal reading inventory (IRI) provides important information on low-achieving readers that is "not" provided by an end-of-grade standardized reading test. Using case studies of students' IRI performance, we address the concept of instructional level and the necessity of teaching low…

The undeniable importance of reading in higher education prompted this investigation into the reading skills of a group often overlooked in previous research: master's level students studying in English-medium instruction (EMI) environments. Participants (148 master's-level students of engineering) completed the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (Form G),…

The purpose of this study was to investigate if a group of sixth-grade low achievement language minority (LM) students' reading skills could be improved by an intervention designed to train reading fluency, a critical component of reading development, defined as integrating speed and accuracy (reading rate) as well as prosody. The study included…

The present study investigated the effects of the cognitive enhancement training (COGENT) program on the reading skills (reading speed, reading errors, and reading comprehension) and writing skills (dictation and text copying) of students with specific learning disabilities (SLD). The study was conducted with an experimental design. The study…

A key characteristic of individuals with autism is communicative dysfunction. Specifically identifying the appropriate use of pragmatic skills such as phrasing and syntax. When looking at expressing phrasing (producing of word groups), communication research has highlighted a significant group difference between students with autism and typically…

In this study, it was investigated how the reading skills of students who were in the 3rd grade of primary school when the COVID-19 pandemic started (March 2020) were affected at the end of the fourth grade (June 2021) due to the school closure during the pandemic. The study employed the longitudinal survey model. Ten teachers and 18 primary…

Research has shown that fewer studies have focused on improving the reading abilities of middle school Black girls (Morris, 2007). As BGRDs progress through K-12 grades, they increasingly rely on basic and advanced reading skills (i.e., oral reading fluency [ORF] and comprehension) to learn. Providing BGRDs with engaging reading passages that are…

Dowd and Bartlett (2019) tested the reading competencies of second graders attending Save the Children programs in 11 countries. They used sixty-word passages and comprehension questions without time limits and analyzed data of students reading more than 10 words per minute. They found wide disparities in speed among those who showed high…

Dyslexie is a specialized font style that was designed to enhance reading performance in students with reading disabilities. The present study sought to examine Dyslexie's impact, compared to two commonly used fonts, on reading performance while controlling for Dyslexie's large size and spacing. We recruited 36 fourth and fifth grade students…

This publication highlights the key concepts and findings of the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) study. Oral reading fluency is defined as the ability to read text aloud with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. The NAEP ORF study was administered to a nationally representative sample of over…

An individual diagnosed with dyslexia in childhood typically remains dyslexic throughout his/her life. However, the cognitive profile of adults with dyslexia has been less explored than that of children. This meta-analytic study is intended to clarify three questions: (1) To what extent, and in what manner, do adults with reading difficulties…

During comprehension, readers' general world knowledge and contextual information compete for influence during integration and validation. Fantasy narratives, in which general world knowledge often conflicts with fantastical events, provide a setting to examine this competition. Experiment 1 showed that with sufficient elaboration, contextual…