Poor comprehenders are a significant subgroup of poor readers who, due to their ability to read aloud accurately, are often difficult to identify. This study aimed to determine whether assessment using two oral language tasks, mapped onto the two components of the Simple View of Reading, would provide an efficient approach to identification.…

Purpose: Oral language plays a significant role in the development of reading and writing skills in intermediate grade students. Therefore, it is an important consideration for students receiving special education services for a language-based learning disability (LLD) through the public school system. The goal of this study was to examine the…

Dialogic reading, in which parents engage children in discussion of books, is associated with long-term literacy success. Social media is an emerging platform for promoting behavioral change, but it has yet to be tested as a platform for engaging parents in use of dialogic reading strategies with their young children. This exploratory study was…

We describe the design and development of a technology-based inference-making intervention system that includes a set of interactive learning modules, each of which engages students to (a) view age-appropriate children's videos, (b) learn vocabulary words that are central to main ideas in each video, (c) respond to inferential questions, (d)…

This study investigated the relationship between student performance on behavioral measures (reading, language, and executive function) and reading comprehension while reading with and without text-to-speech (TTS) accommodations. Twenty-nine children with reading difficulties ages 8 to 12 years completed a battery of reading, language, and…

This research investigated the influence of parental practices on helpless behaviors of struggling readers during homework tasks. Parents (N = 36) of elementary students reported on their children's helpless behaviors, such as task avoidance and negative affect, during homework assignments, and on the nature and frequency of their support.…

The objective of this study was to explore dimensions of oral language and reading and their influence on reading comprehension in a relatively understudied population--adolescent readers in 4th through 10th grades. The current study employed latent variable modeling of decoding fluency, vocabulary, syntax, and reading comprehension so as to…

Novel word learning is reported to be problematic for children with severe language impairments (SLI). In this study, we tested electronic storybooks as a tool to support vocabulary acquisition in SLI children. In Experiment 1, 29 kindergarten SLI children heard four e-books each four times: (a) two stories were presented as video books with…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of print-focused read-alouds, implemented by early childhood special education (ECSE) teachers alone or in conjunction with caregivers, on the print knowledge of children with language impairment (LI). Using random assignment to conditions, children with LI were exposed, over an academic year of…

We statistically examined the oral reading fluency of 295 adults with low literacy by analyzing total words read per minute and word error rates. We identified four fluency-ability groupings based on standardized assessments of reading-related skills (phonemic awareness, word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension, and general ability). Our…