Vocabulary is an important foundation for reading skills. Dual-route cascaded model believes that when form-sound correspondence is irregular, phonetic decoding is a necessary but not sufficient condition for word acquisition. Lexical access in syllabic scripts involves a morphological-phonetic-semantic approach, where phonological decoding is…

Orthographic knowledge (i.e., the knowledge of conventions of a written language) has been identified as a predictor of both basic and higher-level reading processes, however, mostly examined in a cross-sectional design. It remains unclear, whether and how orthographic knowledge contributes uniquely in explaining differences in the acquisition of…

Third to fifth graders read an interactive choose-your-own adventure e-Book. User logs recorded their reading behaviors and were used to investigate students' in-the-moment reading behaviors. Reader's standards of coherence, motivation, and reading strategies were hypothesized to relate to children's reading behaviors, such as time reading pages,…

This longitudinal study investigated development of second language (L2) reading comprehension ability and predictive contributions of five L2 reading components (word recognition speed, listening comprehension, vocabulary breadth, grammar knowledge and first language [L1] reading comprehension) using latent growth curve modelling. The…

The present study aimed to examine the contributions of two separate Pinyin skills and oral vocabulary to Chinese word reading of 70 third graders in a U.S. Mandarin Immersion program where Pinyin was introduced at Grade 3. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that Pinyin initial-final spelling--the skill to spell Chinese syllables using Pinyin…

This study was designed to examine the independent contribution of prosodic sensitivity--the rhythmic patterning of speech-to word reading and spelling in a sample of early readers. Ninety-three English-speaking children aged 5-6 years old (M = 69.28 months, SD = 3.67) were assessed for their prosodic sensitivity, vocabulary knowledge,…

Unlike English, short vowel sounds in Arabic are represented by diacritics rather than letters. According to the presence and absence of these vowel diacritics, the Arabic script can be considered more or less transparent in comparison with other orthographies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of working memory to…

As readers struggle to coordinate various reading- and language-related skills during oral reading fluency (ORF), miscues can emerge, especially when processing complex texts. Following a miscue, students often self-correct as a strategy to potentially restore ORF and online linguistic comprehension. Executive functions (EF) are hypothesized to…

Lexical inferencing from text is a powerful tool for vocabulary and reading comprehension enhancement. Lexical inferencing relies on the pre-requisite skills of reading and existing vocabulary, and is also linked to non-verbal inferencing abilities and reading comprehension. In this study, we examined whether Fifth-grade Russian-speaking language…

These two studies examined the processes underlying English and Chinese word reading in Chinese-English bilinguals in relation to their experiences with their second language (L2), as determined by length of time in an English-speaking environment. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness and vocabulary measures were administered in English…

In the present study we examined the relation between alphabet knowledge fluency (letter names and sounds) and letter writing automaticity, and unique relations of letter writing automaticity and semantic knowledge (i.e., vocabulary) to word reading and spelling over and above code-related skills such as phonological awareness and alphabet…

This study used a within-subjects design to explore two instructional conditions for developing vocabulary in second-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs)--extended instruction and embedded instruction implemented during shared interactive reading. Words assigned to the extended condition were directly taught using a multifaceted approach…