Observation of native Hebrew speakers who read Hebrew and English texts suggested that there is a powerful affective factor which completely blocks the reading in English of some students and severely limits the comprehension of a considerable number of others when they meet difficulties in the foreign language texts. (Author/CB)

Research studies on how adults learn and develop second-language reading competence were considered in the context of a componential theory of reading. In particular, C. A. Perfetti's Verbal Efficiency Theory (VET) was used as a framework in which to organize and evaluate the studies' contribution to the field of second-language reading. The…

Explored the effect of giving novice foreign language readers information about the rhetorical structure of an expository text as a text adjunct. Results indicated that an expanded framework is an effective text adjunct for the comprehension of the expository prose. (27 references) (Author/CB)

Examines the performance of native speakers of Chinese and of English on a random detection cloze in their native language, and in the case of the Chinese, also in English as a Second Language, for what they reveal about native and nonnative readers' strategies and about reading in the two different languages. (24 references) (Author/CK)

Shows that intermediate learners of German whose first language is English experience more semantic difficulties when reading an English text and more syntactic difficulties when reading a German version of the same text. A stronger emphasis on syntactic features, such as word category, agreement relationships, tensing, and word placement in the…

This study examines the use of strategies and knowledge sources in L2 lexical inferencing and their relationship with inferential success. Data consist of introspective and retrospective think-aloud protocols of 21 intermediate ESL learners who attempted to infer new word meanings from context. Analysis reveals that (a) overall, the rate of…

A study investigated the strategies used by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) to comprehend texts written in English. Subjects were 15 student teachers enrolled at a state university in Indonesia. Data were gathered using think-aloud tasks, retellings, a reading comprehension test, in-depth interviews, and casual observation. Two…

The study reported in this paper investigated second language learners' ability to analyze new words without the use of context clues. The study focused on how confidence and accuracy increase or decrease with prior knowledge of a language and how availability of reading strategies can affect confidence or accuracy. Three groups of graduate…

This paper outlines the theoretical foundations of a strategy-based approach to second language reading abilities and demonstrates how the strategies described can be related to content area texts, thereby "authenticating" the learner's knowledge. There are three major sections--approach, method, and techniques. The "approach"…

A case study addressed (1) the relationship between language ability and the use of top-level organizational strategies that focus on the macrostructure of written text, and (2) the comparative use of these strategies when reading expository texts in native language (L1) and second language (L2). Subjects were five Hispanic English as a second…

Compares word-attack and comprehension skill mastery of 65 native Spanish-speaking upper elementary students in a bilingual English/Spanish program and 55 native Spanish-speaking students of the same grade levels in an English monolingual program. There was no significant difference in the word-attack skills of the two groups but the bilingual…

College students (N=180), in first-semester and second-semester Spanish at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, were each given a short text and one of five assessment tasks to determine if comprehension of the subjunctive is necessarily due to prior instruction in its form and use or can be achieved without instruction. Text and…

This booklet is designed to introduce aspects of effective reading instruction that should be considered when teaching reading to students with disabilities. An introduction discusses general principles for teaching reading to students with disabilities and emphasizes the importance of individually designing a program based on a student's…

Discuses the use of micro stories--shorter short stories--in the Spanish language classroom. Highlights the use of one micro story--Monterrosos'"El dinasauro"--as a point of departure for teaching literary reading skill to intermediate college and secondary level students. (Author/VWL)

Little cross-cultural empirical research has been devoted to expectations for academic performance of study abroad (SA) students, particularly in their foreign language (FL) reading. This study explored premobility English and French FL reading comprehension and strategy use in 177 European SA students of law and economics. Our concern was whether…