Mayer (2017, 2020) proposed three major design features of computer-assisted instructions (CAI) within the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning: reducing extraneous processing (i.e., excluding irrelevant content), managing essential processing (i.e., focusing on the complex but essential learning materials), and fostering generative processing…

Purpose: Reading requires the ability to decode and comprehend. Impairments in working memory (WM) are often implicated in students who are poor decoders. It is unclear whether this is a domain-specific issue or a task-specific issue. Therefore, this study examined how auditory-verbal (AV) WM, visual-spatial (VS) WM, and cognitive load affected…

The effects of a word identification game aimed at enhancing decoding efficiency in poor readers were tested. Following a pretest-posttest-retention design with a waiting control group, 62 poor-reading Dutch second graders received a five-hour tablet intervention across a period of five weeks. During the intervention, participants practiced…

In this study, we describe young students' actions at point of difficulty in reading and examine changes in their strategic use of sources of information. We examined errors from running records of first graders who entered Reading Recovery (RR) in the fall and ended the year reading at the first-grade level compared with RR first graders who did…

The benefits of engaging with age-appropriate reading materials in classroom settings are numerous. For example, students' comprehension is developed as they acquire new vocabulary and concepts. The Common Core requires all students have daily opportunities to engage with "complex text" regardless of students' decoding levels. However,…

We now have an evidence base that documents that we could teach every child to read by the end of first grade. However, most schools have almost none of the key aspects of instruction that have been available in the research to ensure we achieve this goal. In this paper I argue that this failure is not the result of inadequate funding but rather…

The focus of this paper is on the assessment of the two main processes that children must acquire at the single word reading level: word recognition (lexical) and decoding (nonlexical) skills. Guided by the framework of the dual route model, this study aimed to (1) investigate the impact of item characteristics on test performance, and (2)…

We evaluated the effects of student characteristics (sight word reading efficiency, phonological decoding, verbal knowledge, level of reading ability, grade, gender) and text features (passage difficulty, length, genre, and language and discourse attributes) on the oral reading fluency of a sample of middle-school students in Grades 6-8 (N =…

This study examined the impact of independent practice of multiple-criteria text that targeted high-frequency words, decodability, and meaningfulness. Second-grade students, including at-risk students, were randomly assigned within classroom to a treatment group that read multiple-criteria text ("n" = 34), or contrast group that read…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of impaired reading skills and visual discomfort on the reading rate and comprehension of university students when reading texts presented at a high school (Grade 9) or university (Grade 12) level of difficulty. Groups included impaired readers (n = 18) and normal readers with (n = 13) or…

Decodable books based on previous classroom instruction are the most frequently used texts for 1st grade reading instruction in public schools, yet no empirical studies exist demonstrating their efficacy or their benefits for beginning readers. This study attempts to address this gap in the research literature by analyzing the reading behaviors of…

Improving reading rate can be difficult for poor readers. In this experiment, we investigated the impact of improvement in reading rate on other aspects of reading, including word recognition, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension. Poor readers in Grades 2 or 4 (N = 123) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: practice reading text at their…

The first purpose of this study was to investigate whether the visuospatial working memory (VSWM) skills of 15-16-year-old pupils with difficulties in mathematics differ from those of their normally achieving peers. The goal was to broaden the view of the complex system of VSWM. A set of passive and active VSWM tasks was used. The study's second…

Three studies compared 98 children with spina bifida myelomeningocele (SBM)--a disorder associated with high rates of math disability and spatial deficits--to 94 typically developing children on multidigit subtraction and cognitive addition tasks. Children with SBM were classified into those with reading decoding and math disability, only math…

This study, involving 59 disabled and nondisabled adolescent readers, tested A. Kennedy's "spatial map" hypothesis wherein spatial sequencing ability is important in lexical reaccess under high-demand text situations alone. Tests of the variance contributions of a spatial sequencing covariate to eye movement dependent measures of reading, across…