The essay discusses innovations in reading education by the schoolbook author Marcius Willson (1813-1905) through an examination of two popular series of basal readers he produced during and after the American Civil War. His School and Family Series (Harper & Brothers, 1860-) generated acrimonious debate about science education, literacy, and…

Purpose: Graded readers can help English language learners to improve their reading ability. Literary texts with simplified language often differ from expository texts for teaching EFL learners. Although reading strategies have been used to facilitate comprehension, how students use strategies to process literary texts is underexplored. The…

It has been more than twenty years since the National Reading Panel Report (2000) provided recommendations for the teaching of reading based on a meta-analysis of suitable research. The report was commissioned at the end of the 1990s, just as the "whole language" reading movement that advocated for analytic phonics instruction and having…

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate (1) students' interest in reading English books, (2) students' interest in using an online Virtual Library (VL), and (3) students' experiences and preferences relating to the implementation of an online VL within an Academic English Program (AEP). First-year students (N=136) from a public…

From 2006 the British government strongly favoured synthetic phonics as the principal approach for the teaching of initial literacy in state-funded primary schools in England, and since 2010 has made it mandatory. In 2007-2013 just over 100 commercially published phonics schemes were available, and in that same period the government maintained a…

Nation (2014) concluded that most of the vocabulary one needs to read challenging texts in English can be acquired incidentally through voluminous reading. This study examines possible texts that second language (L2) readers can use to move from controlled-vocabulary materials such as graded readers, which go up through approximately the…

This study used many-faceted Rasch measurement to investigate the difficulty of graded readers using a 3-item survey. Book difficulty was compared with Kyoto Level, Yomiyasusa Level, Lexile Level, book length, mean sentence length, and mean word frequency. Word frequency and Kyoto Level were found to be ineffective in predicting students'…

Graded readers have been used as second language teaching material since the end of the Second World War. They are an important source of simplified material which provides comprehensible input on all levels. It is of crucial importance for a successful usage of graded readers in the classroom and in studies which focus on graded readers, that an…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the effects, if any, of a supplemental phonics curriculum, Saxon Phonics, on the reading achievement of first-grade students in one mountain-west, semirural, school district. The design was casual-comparative and ex post facto, and answered the questions: (1) Do students taught using a…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were published by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association in 2010 as part of a widespread standards-based reform movement in the United States. The education marketplace has responded with CCSS-aligned products, including standardised tests, professional development…

"Setting the Foundation: A Report on Elementary Grades Reading in Tennessee" (ED572952) provides insight into the challenges associated with early grades reading in Tennessee, along with a set of recommendations for building more readers across the state. This appendix provides detailed information about reading programs in Tennessee…

This convergent parallel mixed method sought to determine if the reading program increased third-grade student achievement. The research questions of the study examined the reading achievement scores of third-grade students and the effectiveness of McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders™. Significant differences were observed when a paired sample t test…

This paper describes a pilot study conducted with English as a foreign language (EFL) students at a private university in Japan who used graded readers and the MReader website in class or independently to enhance their English reading skills. Each semester students who read 100,000 words with MReader quizzes passed enter into the "MReader…

Basals have played an important role in classroom instruction for almost 200 years. Historically, basal programs have been influenced by both important research and policy reports. This study analyzed one publishing company's basal program across seven editions in order to trace the interaction of research, policy, and publication. Teacher's…

The dopaminergic modulation of long-term potentiation (LTP) has been studied well, but the mechanism by which dopamine induces LTP (DA-LTP) in CA1 pyramidal neurons is unknown. Here, we report that DA-LTP in basal dendrites is dependent while in apical dendrites it is independent of activation of L-type voltage-gated calcium channels (VDCC).…