The current study examines the role of gender, socioeconomic status, and region in predicting the reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Based on the relevant literature, three hypotheses have been formulated, which entail three independent variables (gender, socioeconomic status, and region) and the dependent…

The present study examined the components of oral reading fluency (ORF) via various indices and their relationships with comprehension and learner-perceived difficulty of oral reading among Chinese second language (L2) learners. One hundred participants read aloud paragraphs, completed the comprehension test, and rated the difficulty of the oral…

Successful text comprehension requires readers to engage in a number of coherence-building processes. This study examined how analyzing the cohesion of students 'constructed responses can be used to evaluate these coherence-building processes and the extent to which they vary across readers' individual differences and across types of texts. We…

Given the fact that reading is considered as a crucial language skill through which the reader can interact with the author to obtain the required information for the higher communication and participation in the current literary society (Walker in Diagnostic teaching of reading: techniques for instruction and assessment, Merril, Columbus, 2000),…

The present study aimed at exploring the joint effects of reading motivation and reading anxiety on English reading comprehension in the Taiwanese English as a foreign language (EFL) context. To this end, a total of 140 (26 males, 114 females) EFL freshmen from required General English I courses at a university in southern Taiwan satisfactorily…

In two studies, we explored the associations among situational reading-related competence beliefs and task value, inference strategies, comprehension during reading, and foundational skills in college age students. In Study 1, 93 participants from a community college completed assessments of comprehension and two types of inference strategies…

This study examined the perceived effects of test preparation for College English Test Band 4 (CET4) on development of language ability and test performance, which has not received sufficient attention previously. A total of 79 undergraduate students from two classes in a Chinese university participated in the study. At the end of the CET4…

Previous studies offer mixed evidence regarding whether a unified model of reading comprehension predictors applies to Dual Language Learners (DLLs) and English Speakers (ESs), or whether distinctive models across language groups are empirically supported. The present study adds another dimension to this body of work by examining multiple reading…

This study documents the process of implementation of an adolescent reading intervention. Using data from observations of teachers (n=17) during the 2013-14 school year, I conducted a nuanced descriptive analysis of fidelity of implementation (FoI). I also analyzed weekly logs completed by literacy coaches (n=3) to examine variation in quantity…

The purpose of this study was twofold: to create a measure of morphological awareness with college students and to examine effects of morphological awareness on literacy abilities. Three morphological awareness measures, and spelling, word reading, and sentence comprehension tasks were administered to 214 undergraduate college students. Item…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require students to read grade-level text with "scaffolding as needed." The current study examines the effectiveness of interactional scaffolding, which is responsive in-person support an expert provides to a novice reader in order to support the reader's comprehension during reading instruction,…

Previous research has identified various factors that contribute to readers' comprehension of expository texts, including strategy expertise, language proficiency, prior knowledge, and more recently, readers' beliefs about knowledge. This study addresses the need to understand the relative contributions of these predictors to readers'…

This study developed a new survey of teachers' knowledge about early reading and examined the effects of teachers' knowledge on students' reading achievement in Grades 1 to 3 in a large sample of Michigan schools. Using statistical models that controlled for teachers' personal and professional characteristics, students' prior reading achievement,…

Students (N = 730) took the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (current forms G or H) during orientation to medical school. Stepwise regression analyses showed the Nelson-Denny Reading Vocabulary, Comprehension, and Rate were significant predictors of MCAT (taken prior to admission to medical school) verbal reasoning. Reading Vocabulary was a significant…

Results from a longitudinal study indicated that first grade metalinguistic awareness was a statistically significant predictor of students' (N=65) reading comprehension performance in both third and fifth grades, even when academic aptitude was in the regression equation. (Author/IAH)