The science of reading emphasizes explicit skills-based reading instruction to support students' reading acquisition. Yet, despite ample evidence of support, some students do not respond to such instruction adequately. To characterize why some students are not responsive to evidence-based reading instruction and to inform the development of novel…

Studies in cognitive science have verified that working memory (where the brain solves problems) can manipulate nearly all elements of knowledge that can be recalled automatically from long-term memory, but only a few elements that have not previously been well memorized. Research in reading comprehension has found that "lecture notes with…

This paper looks at the history of listening strategies development from the first studies on strategies used by L2 learners to the most current studies specific to L2 listening, and how this theory can be incorporated into classroom teaching that fosters practice, not testing. This paper also examines the type of needs analysis and diagnostic…

By elaborating the definition of listening comprehension, the characteristic of spoken discourse, the relationship between STM and LTM and Krashen's comprehensible input, the paper puts forward the point that the priority of listening comprehension over speaking in the language acquisition process is very necessary.

As the call for evidence-based programs and practices heightens (e.g., the Every Student Succeeds Act), there is little doubt about the urgency to bring solid research into the classroom. Implementing findings generated from rigorous research continues to be a viable, trustworthy, and necessary factor in preventing and addressing learning…

In recent decades, increasing numbers of studies have focused on metacomprehension accuracy, or readers' ability to distinguish between texts comprehended more vs. less well. Following early findings that suggested readers are fairly poor at doing so, a number of studies have identified specific tasks to supplement a single reading of text that…

In this article, the authors state that increases in technological capabilities are enabling more students to complete schoolwork in online learning environments--in addition to and sometimes instead of traditional classrooms. Teachers, parents, and learning coaches who are working with students using these online environments need to know about…

Research Findings: Executive function begins to develop in infancy and involves an array of processes, such as attention, inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, which provide the means by which individuals control their own behavior, work toward goals, and manage complex cognitive processes. Thus, executive function plays a…

The aim of physics education is to generate understanding of physics and there is considerable anecdotal evidence that passing examinations in physics is not the same as understanding the subject. This paper describes how the areas of difficulties in understanding of physics were determined for pupils in Taiwan aged 13-15. Test material which…

A major reason why dyslexia is likely to be missed or mislabeled in an intellectually gifted child is the lack of a specific, clearly recognized definition to enable diagnosis of dyslexia. It's crucial that adults working with gifted students understand that average or even above reading comprehension does not by itself guarantee that a gifted…

Listening comprehension input is necessary for language learning and acculturation. One approach to developing listening comprehension skills is through exposure to massive amounts of naturally occurring spoken language input. But exposure to this input is not enough; learners also need to make the comprehension corpus meaningful to their learning…

Now in a second edition, the award-winning "The Trouble with Maths" offers important insights into the often confusing world of numeracy. By looking at learning difficulties in maths from several perspectives, including the language of mathematics, thinking styles and the demands of individual topics, this book offers a complete overview of the…

Williams syndrome is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by deletion of approximately 25 genes on chromosome 7q11.23. Children with the syndrome evidence large individual differences in both broad language and reading abilities. Nevertheless, as a group, children with this syndrome show a consistent pattern characterized by relative…

This paper reports the results of a dual-task experiment which investigates the nature of working memory resources used in sentence comprehension. Participants read sentences of varying syntactic complexity (containing subject-and object-extracted relative clauses) while remembering one or three nouns (similar to or dissimilar from the…

A major focus in reading difficulty is lack of automaticity in decoding, which overloads the attentional system, leads to the use of small, meaningless visual processing units such as the individual letter, places heavy demands on short-term memory, and interferes with comprehension. Techniques for diagnosis and remediation are noted. (Author/JW)