In this study I explored how professional development training impacts Grade 3 teachers' ability to assess reading proficiency and provide targeted support to enhance learner outcomes in Namibia. An action research methodology was used to plan, engage, and reflect on reading assessment. Data were collected from artifacts gathered during training…

Given the relevance of graphs of functions, we consider their inclusion in primary education from the functional approach to early algebra. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the students' production and reading of graphs when they solved generalization problems from a functional thinking approach. We aim to explore how 3rd and…

Peer-mediated instructional strategies (e.g., peer tutoring) have been effective at teaching academic responses in previous research. This study extended the literature by programming for inference-making, or derived relations. Across two experiments, researchers investigated the use of peer tutoring and inference-making to teach…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of extended vocabulary instruction on the expressive vocabulary of two third-grade students with vocabulary deficits. According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative (n.d.), students in third grade should be able to determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases…

This study explored how two emergent bilinguals (EBs) from refugee families made inferences with more and less culturally relevant texts. The study took place in a third-grade pull-out small group class in a Midwestern U.S. city. Data included video-recordings and transcripts of all 12 read-aloud discussion lessons of four books, interviews with…

Inference is considered an important factor in comprehension models and has been described as a causal factor in predicting comprehension. To date, specific tests for inference are rare and often rely on specific thematic texts. This reliance on thematic inference may raise some concerns as inference is related to prior text-specific knowledge.…

This study examined the direct and indirect relations of foundational language skills (vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, and orthographic knowledge), higher-order cognitive skills (inference making and comprehension monitoring), and word reading to reading comprehension in Chinese. Consistent with the hierarchical relations specified in the Direct…

Drawing on discourse analysis and interview data, this case study uncovers how a lesson study team, supported by a curriculum specialist and an experienced teacher, anchored anticipating of student learning in sound curriculum deliberation, which enabled novice teachers to teach effectively inferencing skills, a highly demanding domain, through an…

Fluency, vocabulary building, making inferences, expanding background knowledge, and metacognitive thinking are reading skills taught in schools across the country. Which of these do ELA teachers consider to be most important? It is not known which of these five areas Western Pennsylvania teachers believe has the most impact on comprehension…

The present study was carried out with 120 Native Tamil speakers to know the effects of age and instructional language on narrative comprehension and inference-making ability. Children from 3rd to 5th grades (8 to 11 years) were divided into Group A (n = 60; Monolinguals) and Group B (n = 60; Bilinguals). Seven questions were framed to assess…

In this study, we aimed to investigate the change in third-grade preservice elementary teachers' observation and inference skills. We also aimed to develop their ability to distinguish observation from inference. A total of 27 preservice elementary teachers participated in the study. Participants' preinstruction and postinstruction observation and…

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a skill of social cognition recently of interest to literacy researchers. This article presents initial findings from a pilot study investigating the use of ToM to teach theme identification and theme statement formation to beginning readers who are less-skilled in comprehension. The authors designed a brief, 1:1 listening…

Research suggests that readers learn about word meanings from the various contexts of words in texts. Therefore, context clue instruction is often recommended as a way of boosting students' word learning skills. Ideally, such instruction should focus on context clue types that are common in authentic texts. We examined the prevalence of context…

The Common Core has emphasized reading for comprehension, including making inferences. However, little is known about the instructional materials included in core literacy programs for teaching inferences. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of background, anaphoric, predictive, and retrospective inferences in instructional…

Book retelling has been frequently used as an indicator of children's reading proficiency. However, how children's performance varies across retelling narrative and expository texts and whether that has different implications for reading proficiency remains understudied. The present study examined 85 high-poverty second- and third-graders'…