This study aimed to determine which types of context clues exist in children's texts and whether it is possible for experts to identify reliably those clues. Three experienced coders used Ames' clue set as a foundation for a system to classify context clues in children's text. Findings showed that the adjustments to Ames' system resulted in 15…

Fluent word reading is hypothesized to facilitate reading comprehension by improving automatic word reading, thus releasing a reader's cognitive resources to focus on meaning. Many students with learning disabilities (LD) struggle to develop reading fluency, which affects reading comprehension. This synthesis extends Chard, Vaughn, and Tyler's…

This article examined the ecological and population validity of research on reading interventions for adolescents in Grades 6 through 12. The 26 studies meeting selection criteria were analyzed to determine the characteristics of the students, interventionists, classroom structures, and school environments used, as well as whether there were…

It is well documented that ELLs face significant challenges as they develop literacy skills in their second language (NCES, 2007, 2011). This population is diverse and growing rapidly in Massachusetts and across the nation (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2013; NCELA, 2011; Orosco, De Schonewise, De Onis, Klingner,…

Social validity refers to participants' perceptions regarding the goals, procedures, and effects of a practice. The collection and report of social validity data can serve an important role in understanding, and possibly remedying, obstacles affecting the successful adoption of empirically based practices by the field. Studies published between…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a quantitative content analysis of the conference session programs from the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) annual meetings across five decades spanning from 1960 through 2010. The data cycled through an analysis during four separate phases. In total, 4,605 conference sessions were…

This study investigated the relative extent to which developing readers (6- and 9-year-olds) of English (deep) or Greek (transparent) orthography exhibit serial and exterior letter effects in letter position encoding. Participants were given a visual search task that required detection of a pre-specified target letter within a random five-letter…

Planning, conducting, and reporting leading-edge research requires professionals who are capable of highly skilled reading. This study reports the development of an empirically informed computer-based learning environment designed to foster the acquisition of reading comprehension strategies that mediate expertise in the social sciences. Empirical…

Book reading has been demonstrated to promote vocabulary. The current study was conducted to examine the added value of an interactive shared book reading format that emphasizes active as opposed to noninteractive participation by the child. Studies that included a dialogic reading intervention group and a reading-as-usual control group, and that…

This article reports the results of an experiment investigating the role of comic strips on ESL learners' reading comprehension. The students' proficiency levels were estimated, and students were organized into a low intermediate-level proficiency group (low-level students) and a high intermediate-level proficiency group (high-level students).…