This study investigates the derivation of scalar implicatures in Chinese children with reading difficulties (RD). Twenty-four children with RD (mean age 9 years and 8 months), 20 age-matched typical readers (mean age 9 years and 10 months), 20 six-year-old children and 20 five-year-old children were tested with the comprehension of sentences with…

This study examined (a) the identification of various reading groups across languages in Chinese (L1) adolescents learning English as a second language (ESL), in terms of their word-reading and reading comprehension skills, (b) overlap in reading group membership across languages, and (c) the performance of the various reading groups on…

This study set out to compare patterns of relationships among phonological skills, orthographic skills, semantic knowledge, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension in English as a first language (EL1) and English language learners (ELL) students and to test the applicability of the lexical quality hypothesis framework. Participants…

A group of 50 good readers and a group of 50 poor readers of Grade 5 matched for age and intelligence and selected on the basis of their proficiency in reading comprehension were tested for their competence in word reading and the process of planning at three different levels, namely, perceptual, memory and conceptual in order to study the…

The appropriateness of innovative educational concepts for students from a low socioeconomic status (SES) or ethnic minority background is sometimes called into question. Disadvantaged students are supposed to benefit more from traditional approaches with Programmatic Instruction (PI). We examined Developmental Education (DE), an innovative…

This exploratory study compares the shared book reading behaviours of five school aged children with DS (aged 11 years 6 months to 15 years 6 months) before and after participation in an intervention which included selected components of the MultiLit Reading Tutor Program. The program was delivered 1:1 to participants each week over a 12 week…

Dyslexic difficulties in lexical stress were compared to difficulties in segmental phonology. Twenty-nine adolescents with dyslexia and 29 typically developing adolescents, matched on age and nonverbal ability, were assessed on reading, spelling, phonological and stress awareness, rapid naming, and short-term memory. Group differences in stress…

It has been well established that poor reading skills in the first grades of primary school can lead to poor reading skills in all coming years. A reading acceleration program (RAP) known to improve reading skills in adults and children with and without reading difficulties (RD) was tested for its effect on children in second grade with standard…

Both for the first language (L1) and for all additional languages (L2 or L3), grammatical knowledge plays a vital role in understanding texts (e.g., Grabe, 2005). However, little is known about the development and interaction of grammar and reading comprehension in beginning foreign language learning, especially with respect to children with a…

We evaluated the effect of morphological awareness training delivered in preschool (8 months before school entry) on reading ability at the end of grade 1 and 5 years later (in Grade 6). In preschool, one group of children received morphological awareness training, while a second group received phonological awareness training. A control group…

It has been argued that children with dyslexia (DC) are poor at learning a foreign language (L2) and, in particular, reading foreign words. This assumption is so general that an Italian law (law 170, October, 2010) has established that DC may be completely exempted from foreign language learning and, in any case, should not be engaged in tuition…

The present study aims to contribute to the understanding of the effects of music education, in particular music composition as a classroom activity for fifth- and sixth-graders. The intervention (experimental condition) focused on a three-step-model for music composition, based on the Cultural Historical Activity Theory of education, and has been…

The overall objective of this article is to examine how oral language abilities relate to reading profiles in English language learners (ELLs) and English as a first language (EL1) learners, and the extent of similarities and differences between ELLs and EL1s in three reading subgroups: normal readers, poor decoders, and poor comprehenders. The…

Failure to "activate" relevant, existing background knowledge may be a cause of poor reading comprehension. This failure may cause particular problems with inferences that depend heavily on prior knowledge. Conversely, teaching how to use background knowledge in the context of gap-filling inferences could improve reading comprehension in…

This study examined syntactic comprehension in French children with dyslexia in both listening and reading. In the first syntactic comprehension task, a partial version of the Epreuve de Comprehension syntaxico-semantique (ECOSSE test; French adaptation of Bishop's test for receptive grammar test) children with dyslexia performed at a lower level…