This study investigated the oral reading strategy use of 51 first-grade readers in a Chinese Dual-Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programme. It attempted to answer the following research questions: (1) What reading strategies do first-grade Mandarin Chinese DLBE learners employ to decode Chinese text during oral reading? (2) Do the first-grade…

This article reports on a study designed to determine if the lowest achieving first-grade students who were identified by their school districts as at-risk for dyslexia can be distinguished from students who have initial reading and writing difficulties but did not present dyslexia characteristics. Thirty-six first-grade students from two…

This study explored the effects of repeated oral reading practice on EFL learners' oral reading fluency development over a three-month period. The participants were 44 hospitality majors, divided into four different subgroups according to language proficiency (LP 1-4, in which 1 was the lowest and 4 the highest). To examine the changes of…

Calls for empirical investigations of the Common Core standards (CCSSs) for English Language Arts have been widespread, particularly in the area of text complexity in the primary grades (e.g., Hiebert & Mesmer "Educational Research," 42(1), 44-51, 2013). The CCSSs mention that qualitative methods (such as Fountas and Pinnell) and…

The purpose of this study was to compare the impact of two storybooks -- one with realistic and one with non-realistic characters -- on children's comprehension performance. Children's performances in character and event recall, reasoning and problem-solving were compared. The participants were 100 young children enrolled in 1 of 13 classes at 4…

The current study longitudinally examined a crucial individual difference variable -- i.e. awareness (operationalized as explicit attention and articulatory knowledge) -- in adult second language (L2) speech learning in the context of 40 Japanese learners' English /[alveolar approximant]/ pronunciation development in an EFL classroom. The…

In the current study, we investigated the effects of an instructional package on the construction of sentences writing by four children ages 6-9, with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We employed a multiple probe across behaviors design to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention package and also conducted probes to assess generalization and…

This study investigated the effect of font style and character spacing on reading performance of 25 second graders, measured by an oral reading fluency test. The effect of font type and character spacing on reading performance was analyzed with ANOVA. Font style did affect reading performance. Character spacing may be relevant for longer reading…

The purpose of this study was two-fold: To understand how reading aloud can help improve the cognitive learning processes of first grade students in Saudi Arabia; and to analyze different reading aloud techniques and their effects on the students' learning attitudes and motivation in the classroom. The applied research required two first grade…

Today, reading aloud is considered 'a significant component of instruction across grade levels'; particularly as a tool for teaching reading in elementary classrooms. It is basically an essential literacy practice for all student teachers to understand how to implement. In this study, authors understand the importance of modelling effective…

Research has widely demonstrated the contribution of word reading, listening comprehension skills, and oral reading fluency to reading comprehension performance. However, the existence of reciprocal relations among these skills has been investigated less frequently. The authors examined the directionality of the relations among reading…

The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a relationship between oral narrative production and the reading comprehension of expository text. The research questions are: (1) What is the relationship between oral narrative production and reading comprehension of expository text in fifth-grade students?; (2) Which components of oral…

This report discusses the benefits of canine-assisted reading through the "Tail Waggin' Tutors" program at the Glen Burnie Regional Library in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Presented are the two different types of therapy dog interactions, Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) and Animal-Assisted Activities (AAA). The first canine-assisted…

This paper describes the origins of the widely used curriculum--based measure of oral reading fluency (ORF) and how the creation and use of ORF norms has evolved over time. Norms for ORF can be used to help educators make decisions about which students might need intervention in reading and to help monitor students' progress once instruction has…

The present study investigates whether training second language pronunciation with tactile cues facilitates the production of non-native sounds involving accessible articulatory features. In a between-subjects experiment with a pretest-training-posttest design, 50 Turkish learners of English received audiovisual training on a set of target words…