Effects of semantic versus syntactic constraints on resolution of Hebrew heterophonic-homographic words were examined at three reading skill levels. Fourth-and sixth-grade students and a group of adults read aloud sentences containing two types of heterophonic-homographs: noun-noun (e.g., BYCH [Hebrew characters] is read as beitsa 'egg' and bitsa…

The achievement gap is ever growing in the United States educational system. Low socioeconomic students is one demographic group who is targeted for educators to evaluate teaching and learning. Academic vocabulary is a targeted piece of language that is integrated into all content areas in school that makes content comprehensible. Low…

Students are expected to comprehend and produce increasingly complex texts in upper elementary school, and academic language and literacy skills are considered critical to meeting these expectations. Notions of academic language are also controversial and require careful deliberation when applied to traditionally minoritized populations, including…

This study begins by connecting semantic elaboration with conceptual understanding and syntactic elaboration with procedural understanding in the context of fractions. Through case studies and discourse analysis, the work and communication of students in fourth through sixth grade is analyzed to determine the extent of their semantic and syntactic…

This two-year longitudinal study examined the role of linguistic interdependence between Spanish and English among a group of first, second, and third generation immigrant Spanish-English bilingual children. Starting from a theoretical perspective on linguistic interdependence that takes into account linguistic constructs and their measurement,…

Testing a component model of reading comprehension in a randomized controlled trial, we evaluated the efficacy of 4 interventions that were designed to target components of language and metacognition that predict children's reading comprehension: vocabulary, listening comprehension, comprehension of literate language, academic knowledge, and…

Testing a component model of reading comprehension in a randomized controlled trial, we evaluated the efficacy of 4 interventions that were designed to target components of language and metacognition that predict children's reading comprehension: vocabulary, listening comprehension, comprehension of literate language, academic knowledge, and…

Purpose: This research investigated children's ability to acquire semantic and syntactic knowledge of derived nominals and derived adjectives in the context of short passages. The study also investigated the relation of morphological awareness and the ability to acquire knowledge of derived words in context. Method: A total of 106 children in…

Many students struggle with gaining knowledge and writing about content text material and therefore require effective intervention. In a randomized controlled trial study, 77 low-achieving fourth-grade students received reading comprehension instruction or reading comprehension plus writing instruction or were assigned to a no-treatment control.…

The present study investigated the role of vocabulary depth in reading comprehension among a diverse sample of monolingual and bilingual children in grades 2-4. Vocabulary depth was defined as including morphological awareness, awareness of semantic relations, and syntactic awareness. Two hundred ninety-four children from 3 schools in a…

This study investigated children's understanding of unfamiliar noun and verb definitions in tasks that were manipulated for syntactic and semantic properties of definitions. The study was also designed to examine the relation between understanding word definitions and the skills of syntactic awareness and making inferences. A total of 117 children…

This study reports how 24 grade 4-6 students in one elementary and middle school interpreted formal and informal representations of variables. While interpretations for variables represented as letters (e.g., x and y) have been well established for students in algebra classes and beyond, little research into elementary school students'…

This study investigated personal narratives produced by children with and without learning disabilities in the context of naturalistic conversation. The high-point analysis was applied to compare the referential and evaluative aspects of children's personal narratives. Participants were 60 students in Grades 4 and 5 in public suburban schools,…

Introduction: The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether children who have reading disabilities in an alphabetically transparent orthography show a syntactic processing deficit. This research focuses on exploring syntactic processing and the use of morphological markers by subjects with reading disabilities. We analyze these groups'…