Typical print formatting provides no information regarding the linguistic features of a text, although texts vary considerably with respect to grammatical complexity and readability. Complex texts may be particularly challenging for individuals with weak language knowledge, such as English language learners. This paper investigates the usefulness…

The divisibility of the reading has led many researchers to examine whether reading construct is a unitary skill that cannot be divided into separate sub-skills, or it is composed of underlying components. In these studies, however, participants have generally been located in a product-oriented testing environment where their actual reading…

This research investigated the relationship between reading maturity, reading strategy use, and gender with Iranian EFL undergraduates' reading comprehension. The results revealed that the most preferred strategies were cognitive in nature. Moreover, the Iranian EFL undergraduates were intellectually enriched by most of what they read and enjoy…

This mix-method research attempts at extending our knowledge about the impact of L1 glossing (Persian) for abstract words on reading comprehension in English. It also examines learners' attitudes towards abstract glossed words while engaged in reading. Sixty students in Iranian language institutes were recruited to participate in the quantitative…

Top-down models of reading emphasize methods and techniques that promote active reading which involves utilizing contextual clues to guess vocabulary meaning. This study aims at analyzing the correlation between EFL students' general reading proficiency and guessing patterns, and identifying the types of contextual clues actually used by EFL…

International students, a growing population in US universities, need to possess excellent reading skills in order to succeed. American universities also benefit from admitting students who do not require remedial English classes. Reading online has become an integrated part of college education, which requires students to have additional skills.…

This study examined the effect of reading goal, topic-familiarity, and language proficiency on text comprehension and learning. English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students with high and low topic-familiarity read and recalled a text. Some were told in advance to expect a recall task in a particular language--the first language (L1) or second…

With the growing prevalence of Web 2.0 technologies and use of online resources in their classrooms, language learners have increasing exposure to online texts. In this study we attempted to understand how university level second language (L2) readers construct meaning when reading online. We investigated L2 readers' information-seeking strategies…

Growing concerns have been voiced about strategies employed in L2 reading in general and dealing with unknown words in particular. Among other strategies, lexical inferencing has received attention in the literature. However, more research is needed to further clarify how different levels of L2 reading proficiency may affect the readers'…

Prompted by the recent shift of attention from just focusing on the top-down processing in L2 reading towards considering the basic component, bottom-up processing, the role of phonological component has also enjoyed popularity among a selected circle of SLA investigators (Koda, 2005). This study investigated the effect of the automatization of…