Diversity of vocabulary knowledge and quantity of language exposure prior to literacy are key predictors of reading development. However, diversity and quantity of exposure are difficult to distinguish in behavioural studies, and so the causal relations with literacy are not well known. We tested these relations by training a connectionist…

Background: There is increasing recognition of the contribution of morphological skills to the development of reading fluency. However, theoretical models and recent research raise questions about how different language skills influence reading development. Methods: The present study was designed to follow the reading development of a large sample…

The present study aimed to examine the role of phonological--semantic flexibility (PSF) in learning to read Chinese. PSF refers to a specific flexibility applied to process the dual linguistic dimensions of words (i.e., sound and meaning). A correlational study (Study 1) was conducted to determine the unique contribution of PSF to three aspects of…

Text complexity has received increased attention due to the CCSS, which call for students to comprehend increasingly more complex texts as they progress through grades. Quantitative text complexity (or readability) indices are based on text attributes (e.g., sentence lengths, and lexical, syntactic, & semantic difficulty), quantified by…

We discuss the real-time scoring logic for a self-administered oral reading assessment on mobile devices (Moby.Read) to measure the three components of children's oral reading fluency skills: words correct per minute, expression and comprehension. Critical techniques that make the assessment real-time on-device are discussed in detail. We propose…

Background: Connectives, such as "because" or "although," explicitly indicate how to semantically link individual segments of a text. Knowledge of connectives has been shown to significantly contribute to variance explanation in comprehension of English and Dutch texts, particularly amongst monolingual students and students…

Many out-of-school time (OST) sites are incorporating literacy time in their programming to capitalize on the benefits associated with literacy instruction. Afterschool is a perfect opportunity to foster a love of reading in children. Expanded learning in afterschool programs can make a difference in both short-term and long-term academic…

In this chapter, we examine adult- and child-focused models of reading with respect to cognitive processing deficits associated with low literacy. We examine influential integrative models of reading and reading comprehension. We then review the empirical literature on components of reading ability, subdivided into three categories: language…

Teaching intermediate grade children how to write means teaching them how to write the alphabetical letters, words, lists, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, narrative text, expository text, and writing mechanics (punctuation & grammar). Teaching writing for meaning is teaching children how to express their thoughts in writing, this is the…

This research examined differences between dyslexic, poor and normal readers who learn in the same educational framework, across various linguistic and meta-linguistic skills in Hebrew as the first language (L1) and English as a foreign language (FL), following an intervention program focusing on English linguistic skills. The participants…

Increasingly, reading research has begun to address how students' linguistic environments may explain their reading achievement. In this exploratory analysis, we investigated how the rates of specific instructional talk moves predicted student reading comprehension achievement. Transcripts from third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade classrooms (teacher…

The present study explores the longitudinal development between Grade 3 word level reading skills and higher level semantic skills to Grade 10 reading comprehension for 3,157 students. In particular, this work focused on how the developmental relations varied for subsamples of students who are English learners (EL; N = 308), students identified as…

This study examines the genetic and environmental etiology underlying the development of oral language and reading skills, and the relationship between them, over a long period of developmental time spanning middle childhood and adolescence. It focuses particularly on the differential relationship between language and two different aspects of…

This study examined Italian 7- to 9-year-olds' understanding of the connective "but" when used to relate two events in sentences embedded in short stories. Performance was largely accounted for by the cognitive complexity of the sentence that included the connective and the salience of its meaning (confirmed in a second study with…

The ability to read is essential for cognitive development. To deepen our understanding of reading acquisition, we explored the neuroanatomical correlates (cortical thickness; CT) of word-reading fluency and sentence comprehension efficiency in Chinese with a group of typically developing children (N = 21; 12 females and 9 males; age range…