The Simple View of Reading (SVR), which posits that reading comprehension is the product of decoding and linguistic comprehension, has been studied extensively with school-age readers. However, little is known about the intricacies of the SVR for adults who struggle with reading. The current study addresses notable gaps in this literature,…

The Simple View of Reading (SVR), which posits that reading comprehension is the product of decoding and linguistic comprehension, has been studied extensively with school-age readers. However, little is known about the intricacies of the SVR for adults who struggle with reading. This study addresses notable gaps in this literature, including the…

Research consistently documents that girls outperform boys in literacy achievement, yet, when considering the starting point--early literacy--we do not have consensus on the origin, meaningful nature, or persistence of such differences. In this two-part study analyzing 5,816 Norwegian students (48.1% girls, average age of 6.1 years), we first…

The purpose of this registered report study was to determine the effects of explicit text structure instruction on the expository text comprehension of students with language and learning disabilities (LLD) using a multiple baseline design across conditions (e.g., compare-contrast and cause-effect) and participants. Participants included four…

The Sentence Structure sub-test (SST) of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF) aims to "measure the acquisition of grammatical (structural) rules at the sentence level". Although originally designed for clinical practice with monolingual children, components of the CELF, such as the SST, are often used to inform…

In contrast to the large body of research investigating intervention for poor decoding skills, far fewer studies have evaluated interventions for reading comprehension. There is even less research on children with more specific difficulties with reading comprehension, often referred to as "poor comprehenders". Levels of effectiveness…

Test-taker characteristics (TTCs), or individual difference variables, are known to be a systematic source of variance in language test performance. Although previous research has documented the impact of a range of TTCs on second language (L2) learners' test performance, few of these studies have involved young learners. Given that young L2…

We examined the efficacy of a Technology-Based Early Language Comprehension Intervention (TeLCI) designed to teach inferencing in a non-reading context. A group of Grades 1 and 2 students from 2 elementary schools in the U.S. Midwest identified as at risk of comprehension difficulties were assigned randomly to a business-as-usual control group or…

Purpose: To date, research on effects of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has focused on a broad range of cognitive impairments, but relatively few studies have examined effects of PAE on development of reading skills. Although PAE has been linked to poorer reading comprehension, it remains unclear whether this impairment is attributable to…

Despite a marked increase in the volume of research investigating issues about reading interventions for students with ASD (e.g., Bailey and Arciuli, Rev J Autism Dev Disord 7(2):127-150, 2020; Chiang and Lin, Focus Autism Other Dev Disab 22(4):259-267, 2007), very few studies have examined the current reading practices experienced by children…

We examined the extent to which the timing of inferential questioning influenced kindergartners' inferencing performance in a non-reading context, while also taking into account individual differences in language comprehension and executive function. Students completed the eight-week Early Language Comprehension Individualized Instruction (ELCII)…

This study examined the relations between and predictive power of three important subcomponents skills of reading comprehension: decoding, listening comprehension, and reading fluency. Through a series of structural equation models, we examine the relations within a full sample of first grade students at the beginning of the year (N = 290). Next,…

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.…

This study identified distinct, homogeneous latent profiles of at-risk (n = 141) and not at-risk (n = 149) first grade readers. Separate latent profile analyses were conducted with each subgroup using measures of phonological awareness, decoding, linguistic comprehension, and oral reading fluency. This study also examined which measures best…

We examined the extent to which the timing of inferential questioning influenced kindergartners' inferencing performance in a non-reading context, while also taking into account individual differences in language comprehension and executive function. Students completed the eight-week Early Language Comprehension Individualized Instruction (ELCII)…