We are in the midst of yet another battle in the reading wars. Before the fog of war overcomes us yet again, we should recall recent history where an attempt at a resolution--Reading First--mostly left ambiguity in its wake. Moving forward, there is a foundation upon which to build. But doing so will require learning from the past, addressing…

Motivating today's adolescents to read is a challenge. Martha Abele Mac Iver, Marcia H. Davis, and Douglas J. Mac Iver discuss the kinds of literacy instructional practices that address what we know about adolescent motivation. They also review several evidence-based literacy interventions designed to engage and motivate adolescent readers that…

Background: Animal-assisted Education (AAE), including Reading to Dogs (RTD), is an area of growing interest internationally across all phases of education, and increasingly considered an innovative approach to improving pupil outcomes. As creating RTD interventions necessitates a combination of expertise from the fields of education and…

The benefits of using literature in second or foreign language teaching have been re-gaining attention and recognition in recent years. With the aim of exploring possible pedagogical approaches and teacher perceptions, this study investigates four reading programmes implemented by experienced teachers in Chinse secondary schools. Different young…

Inspired by common read projects, wherein first-year students read a shared text as a means of acclimating to the university community, our writing program adopted a project introducing students to bell hooks' 'Teaching With Love' through an empathy-based pedagogy. The researchers, with faculty participants, used a heuristic method of indwelling…

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of an dialogic reading program on expressive language vocabulary and category naming skills, which are among the early literacy skills of preschool children. The research was designed in the quasi-experimental model, which is one of the quantitative research methods. The sample of the study consisted…

In this article, we present a (co)reflexive analysis of the multiple adaptations of an English as a Second Language reading curriculum for primary students in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic through our partnership as a practitioner-researcher and an external researcher. Adopting the principles of interactional ethnography, we examined the…

This research was inspired by the phenomenon of binge-watching Korean television drama series (K-dramas) among Taiwanese university students. K-drama fever may provide an impetus for sustained English-subtitled K-dramas viewing, which may serve as an alternative to extensive reading of graded readers that English teachers often encourage their…

Long-standing criteria for Common Reads (CR) programs recognize the value of diversity in the book selection process. This study, examining 1,801 books chosen over a four-year period (2017-20), explored the extent to which these programs have embodied this spirit. In particular, this work focused on the diversity of the books (through genre and…

Headsprout Early Reading is a computer-based program designed on behavioral principles to enhance the basic skills that underpin the initial development of reading. In a within and between groups design, and using primary schools within Northern Ireland that had a currently high proportion of disadvantaged pupils, children who were behind their…

Extensive reading (ER) has been widely practiced in teaching English as a foreign or second language contexts. However, reports on how ER was practiced in Chinese as a foreign or second language (L2) contexts are not commonly seen. This study reports how an ER program was established in a liberal arts college in the U.S.A, and how ER affected L2…

This action research case study on a Common Read Program (CRP) includes analysis of learning management system-mediated student writing and research writing connected to a Common Read selection in First-Year Writing courses. A priori codes drawn from the literature on desired learning goals and outcomes for CRPs and Writing Program Administrators…

This article targets a teaching dilemma found in today's schools, which is the challenge for teachers in our multicultural classrooms to provide appropriate, targeted instruction for the English Language Learner (ELL), most specifically, in the two critical areas of oral language and literacy. The concepts of experiential instruction in this essay…

Purpose: We report findings from a survey of elementary teachers regarding reading instruction. The purpose was to examine teachers' beliefs about how children in the first 7 years of schooling develop reading comprehension skills and to characterize the self-reported practices and strategies they use to support children to comprehend connected…

This study addresses a gap in resilience interventions for rural preschoolers by validating a 14-week play-based picture-book reading program involving 80 Chinese preschoolers aged 4-5 years. Participants were randomly assigned to non-intervention (NI), play intervention (PI), picture-book reading intervention (PRI), or play-based picture-book…