David Stephens, a 4th grade teacher in Washington State, was preparing a lesson plan about desert wildlife (all names are pseudonyms). He was planning on assigning his students the chapter book, "Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus." The students had divergent knowledge about the topic. For example, Maryam had grown up in…

The present study employed regression analyses to examine the influence of cognitive competencies (decoding ability, vocabulary knowledge, prior knowledge) and intrinsic motivation (curiosity and involvement) on the comprehension of narrative and informational texts. Participants included 104 students in grades four and five. Results showed…

This study examined the role of science domain knowledge, reading motivation, and decoding skills in reading comprehension achievement in third-grade students who are English learners (ELs) and students who are monolingual, using a nationally representative data set. Multigroup probit regression analyses showed that third-grade science domain…

Research with school-age readers suggests that the contributions of reading and language skills vary across reading comprehension assessments and proficiency levels. With a sample of 168 struggling adult readers, we estimated the explanatory effects of decoding, oral vocabulary, listening comprehension, fluency, background knowledge, and…

Research with school-age readers suggests that the contributions of reading and language skills vary across reading comprehension assessments and proficiency levels. With a sample of 168 struggling adult readers, we estimated the explanatory effects of decoding, oral vocabulary, listening comprehension, fluency, background knowledge, and…

This article explores 11-year-old children's connections to prior knowledge and experiences while reading a wordless version of "Little Red Riding Hood." The study extends pre-existing research on reader response theories by focusing on images instead of written text. The approach taken places emphasis on the reader's active engagement,…

As part of a year-long, classroom-based research study examining literacy instruction and development, the research team observed emerging decoders draw from a range of semiotic resources while reading picturebooks. Utilizing a case study approach, the researchers selected eight first graders to act as a representative case, and examined their…

Theoretical models of word recognition suggest that knowing what a word means makes it easier to learn how to decode it. We tested this hypothesis with at-risk young students, a group that often responds poorly to conventional decoding instruction in which word meaning is not addressed systematically. A total of 53 first graders received explicit…

This study was conducted to examine the factors that influence informational text comprehension and to determine how these vary for students with higher and lower component skills. The sample included 177 students in grades 3-5. Regression analyses were used to predict informational text comprehension with decoding efficiency, vocabulary…