Background: We examined the influence of text and reader characteristics on sixth graders' inference generation. Methods: Eleven- to 12-year-old US monolingual English speakers (N = 71) and Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 81) read narrative and informational expository texts requiring an inference and answered an inference-tapping question after…

Aims: The primary aim of this study is to augment our understanding of the component skills that underpin second-language learners' text comprehension by examining the direct and indirect roles of vocabulary knowledge and grammatical skills in second-language learners' listening and reading comprehension. Methods: Our sample included 134 learners…

Background: While much is known about how morphological awareness (MA) contributes to reading development, little attention has been paid to how reading may conversely affect MA development, particularly in readers of Chinese in a bilingual/multilingual setting. Methods: The study adopted a cross-lagged panel design. Young bilingual readers of…

Reading research has shown that variable relationships exist between measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension, depending on whether the language of the text is the reader's first language or an additional language. This paper explores this phenomenon, using reading assessment data for 2,000 Kenyan children in two or three…

This study focused on the associations of general auditory processing, speech perception, phonological awareness and word reading in Cantonese-speaking children from Hong Kong learning to read both Chinese (first language [L1]) and English (second language [L2]). Children in Grades 2--4 ("N" = 133) participated and were administered…

Connectives (e.g., although, meanwhile) carry abstract meanings and often signal key relationships between text ideas. This study explored whether understanding of connectives represents a unique domain of vocabulary knowledge that provides special leverage for reading comprehension, and whether the contribution of knowledge of connectives to…