This systematic review aims to synthesize the literature on the effects of cross-linguistic transfer on Spanish/English bilinguals' reading comprehension skills. The search yielded at least 90 studies in which participants were Spanish/English bilinguals aged birth to Grade 12. Researchers assessed participants' decoding and/or linguistic…

Microlearning has increased its popularity for course designs in eLearning environments due to short attention spans and time constraints. The objective of this designed-based research is to describe the multiple iterations of design, development, and revision of a general framework for creating a microlearning reading mobile application. First,…

The American Education Research Association (AERA) is one of the largest education conferences in the world. Using the AERA Open Access Repository, we created a 5,000,000 word corpus of over 18,000 abstracts. We explored the coverages of the New General Service List (NGSL), the New Academic Word List (NAWL), and the Social Science Word List…

In this study, we investigated the degree to which the cognitive processes in which students engage during reading comprehension could be examined through dynamical analyses of their natural language responses to texts. High school students (n = 142) generated typed self-explanations while reading a science text. They then completed a…

In L2 reading, words and the concepts they denote frequently constitute an important vehicle or obstacle in the comprehension process. However, this has been rarely explored from a language awareness perspective. The current research therefore tailors the constructs of lexical awareness and conceptual awareness to L2 reading contexts by using a…

Self-explanations are commonly used to assess on-line reading comprehension processes. However, traditional methods of analysis ignore important temporal variations in these explanations. This study investigated how dynamical systems theory could be used to reveal linguistic patterns that are predictive of self-explanation quality. High school…

In order to enhance second language (L2) acquisition, English as a Second Language (ESL) students are encouraged to exploit the abundant information and opportunities for authentic language use afforded by the Internet. This study investigated the online research and comprehension strategies employed by ESL learners in a public university in…

This paper provides a discussion of the results of a cross-sectional examination of linguistic variables that are predicted to influence L2 reading fluency. This study is part of a larger, longitudinal mixed-methods study into reading fluency development using online Timed Reading (TR) with participants from a mid-to-high level private university…

This paper is part of a work-in-progress that reports on the design, development, and evaluation of a Digital Collaborative Strategic Reading (DCSR) application with regard to its effectiveness in improving English as a second language (ESL) reading comprehension. The DCSR application allows users to read collaboratively on multitouch and…

There is some confusion in discriminating basic educational research (which explores the why's and how's of learning) from applied research (which seeks to test the implications of basic research results) because some investigations are conceived without a clear purpose. Thus, it is not uncommon for researchers to suggest implications that…

Writing, editing, and printing texts for schools has been the accepted role of publishers, while text researchers have concentrated on typography, content, and readability. The hundreds of readability formulas now available make readability the most sophisticated of these three areas. Research in reading comprehension suggests that publishers…

Examining SQ3R research from 1953-1984, this paper provides an update of an earlier review of the literature that was taken from the ERIC database, "Psych Abstracts," and "Dissertation Abstracts." The paper divides the studies by educational level: elementary, junior and senior high school, and college/university. It presents…

A method was developed for characterizing and comparing the semantic content of picture-text combinations used as stimuli in research on reading procedural instructions. The written directions for assembling a toy model were analyzed, and sets of propositions in the instructions were constructed using C. H. Frederiksen's discourse analysis model.…

To gain a greater understanding about how people comprehend a set of directions, a macro-level research approach is needed. Researchers must first decide on the domain of activity that is to be investigated. In our society instructions are used for building things from parts, disassembling things, determining the functional characteristics of…

A transactional investigation of reading considers comprehension to be more than the duplication of the author's message. Rather, it entails the readers' interpretation of the textual representation that he or she has constructed. Thus, researchers must ask how the reader duplicated the author's creative role. The goal, in other words, is to…