This research study sought to determine whether pre-reading assignments have an impact on a student's academic performance. Learning a new topic which oftentimes seems foreign is never easy. However, reading a short article or reviewing a slide-show presentation on the lecture topic before the lecture happens (otherwise known as a pre-reading…

Reading is an essential strategic and a life-long skill required for success in learning. The current study explores the knowledge and beliefs of Saudi students of English as a foreign language (EFL) about English reading comprehension strategies. It also intends to determine if there is a significant correlation between the students' foundational…

Foreign language teaching is a very challenging process and the materials chosen for teaching have of vital importance. In this sense, English teachers' need for alternative materials to textbooks has been increasing day by day but deciding on the right material to use is a demanding job. Teachers are in a continous search for alternative…

Academic reading at college and university poses a real challenge for international students with English as a second language. Often the main hurdles are a lack of language proficiency, critical-reading skills, or background knowledge. Also, unfamiliarity with cultural and academic conventions plays a role. Even with intensive English-language…

The present study reports perceptions of first-year undergraduate medical students (n= 120), regarding modified directed self-learning (DSL) sessions in physiology. Students were provided with prereading assignments (faculty developed PowerPoint slides containing diagrams with incomplete labeling/ flowcharts with missing steps) pertaining to the…

This study explores the effect of prior discipline-related knowledge in reading comprehension for two groups of students of Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL). The first group (G1), had 22 students enrolled in a general Spanish course and the second (G2), had 18 students enrolled in a course of Spanish for medical professions. The aim was to…

This paper reports an action research study which aimed to avoid the use of mother tongue in reading comprehension activities. To this end, an action research study was designed and conducted with 30 elementary level students studying at the Preparatory school of Baskent University. The study was conducted in the first term of 2016-2017 academic…

The goal of this investigation was to determine which reading instruction improves multiple science text comprehension for college student readers. The authors first identified the cognitive processing strategies that are predictive of multiple science text comprehension (Study 1) and then used what they learned to experimentally test the…

Previewing a text is a key global reading strategy. Previewing may increase comprehension as it can activate schema, increase global awareness of the text, and enhance the use of other reading strategies. Despite its importance, an explicit focus on previewing skills has been lacking and previous research on the reading strategies of second…

Facilitating students' acquisition of higherorder thinking skills is imperative in the 21st century. Although some types of text have been shown to enhance higherorder thinking, the effects of many novel forms of text have yet to be investigated. As such, the purpose of the present study was to explore the extent to which a relatively novel form…

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that prereading instructions, including how to self-explain during reading, would enhance multiple-text comprehension for college readers. Three prereading instruction conditions included a control condition that provided only the instruction for participants to try to comprehend well; a definition-only…

This study aims at measuring the amount of the effect of the reader's background knowledge on performance in reading comprehension tests through the assessment of information gained in reading comprehension (RC) tests across-four testing techniques, short answer questions ,true-false items, multiple-choice items, and cloze test and re-test. This…

This study focuses on two pre-reading strategies: vocabulary pre-teaching and comprehension question presentation. Researchers have claimed that a vocabulary strategy is less effective than any other pre-reading strategy. This study investigates whether their claim is true of Japanese university students. The purpose of the study is twofold. The…

With 73 students at an Iranian university, the present study investigated teacher's effect in topic familiarization in L2 reading context. The participants--Group B with and Group A without the presence of a teacher--experienced four pre-reading treatments and read four passages of unfamiliar topics, after which they were tested on comprehension…

It is well documented in the literature that early pre-K reading experiences prepare children for the benefits of formal literacy instruction in the later grades. This is particularly true for young children from nonmainstream backgrounds. The objective of this article is to share the findings of a 4-year qualitative study investigating the…