While the extant literature emphasizes the role of Phonological Awareness (PA) and Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) in children's developing reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition skills, there has been a paucity of information on the contributions made by other factors such as Morphological Awareness (MA). Although evidence of a…

This non-experimental correlational quantitative research study was conducted to examine the relationship between the percentage of voluntary live synchronous virtual lesson attendance (LVLA) and the reading comprehension skill growth of sixth through eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) students enrolled in a Pennsylvania full-time online…

Successful reading comprehension is not a guarantee, even for highly skilled readers. When comprehension fails, the ability of the reader to recognize the failure may be critical to avoiding "mis"comprehension (i.e., false confidence in an inaccurate text representation) and to taking steps to improve comprehension. Generally, people…

The growth of reading and cognitive skills is crucial for children's development. This study examined the utility of incorporating a cognitive framework for reading in intervention design among struggling readers receiving National Institute for Learning Development (NILD) Educational Therapy® over a 3- to 5-year period. Evidence from this…

Data from a randomized control trial of a multi-component intensive reading intervention were analyzed to determine the proportion of students nonresponsive to intervention and to identify predictors of nonresponse. Participants included 216 first-grade students identified as at-risk for reading difficulties. Response to intervention was…

Semantic illusions are recognition errors that occur when an individual fails to notice that information contradicts their prior knowledge (Barton & Sanford, 1993; Erickson & Mattson, 1981). For example, after hearing the question, "If a plane crashes while flying over state lines, where should the survivors be buried?" many…

Readers read for different purposes and the texts they read vary in topic and difficulty. These situational factors influence standards of coherence--how much understanding a reader aims to have for a given text. Three studies examined whether individual differences in reader-based standards of coherence influenced off-line and on-line…

This study's primary purpose was to identify predictors of response to a multi-component reading comprehension intervention in a sample of poor readers in grades 4-5. Additional study aims were to explore (a) the utility of various methods (e.g., "growth" versus "final status") and measures (e.g., "near-transfer"…

Reading fluency involves a complex interaction of different cognitive skills and abilities that develop with instruction and practice and relies on the automaticity of many distinct reading skills (e.g., pacing, word recognition, expression, phonological awareness). Fluent reading frees cognitive resources, such as working memory, for more…

Reading comprehension emerges as an important skill set in the early elementary grades. It is supported by component skills including decoding, linguistic knowledge including vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, as well as more complex, higher-level components such as inference making and comprehension monitoring. Theoretical understanding of…

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the extent to which the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) in isolation and in combination with parent ratings of inattention predicted performance on reading comprehension assessments presented in various formats (question and answer, cloze, and recall) among a non-clinical sample…

Many students struggle to understand what they read. The purpose of my study was to determine the relationship between teachers' instruction of three processes believed to help readers to become more engaged (purpose setting, questioning, and predicting), students' use of these engaged reader processes, and students' comprehension development. My…

The primary aim of this study was to examine the structure of processing speed (PS) in middle childhood by comparing five theoretically driven models of PS. The models consisted of two conceptual models (a unitary model, a complexity model) and three methodological models (a stimulus material model, an output modality model, and a timing modality…

With increasing emphasis being placed on teachers to show an improvement in student achievement, schools are relying on indicators such as reading fluency and reading comprehension to gauge student progress throughout the year. Since the growth on these assessments are used in calculating teachers and administrators' yearly job evaluations, the…

This document describes experimental research conducted with the objective of better understanding adults' self-regulatory decision-making (e.g., study choice) process in reading for comprehension. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which individuals' self-regulatory process may be influenced by…