The authors report two studies that examined how native- and second-language skills were related to second-language reading difficulties for native Chinese-speaking fourth graders learning to read English. In study 1, 50 poor English readers with Chinese-reading difficulties (the PB group) and 34 poor English readers without Chinese-reading…

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of Cooperative Integrated and Composition (CIRC) in teaching reading comprehension to the third semester students of English department at IAIN Lhokseumawe. The population of this study was all the students in the third semester and the samples are unit-1 and unit-2. The sample was chosen by using…

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of multisensory language teaching on 4th graders' achievement in English reading skills. Two intact groups were selected for the treatment: a control group which was taught through mainstream education, and an experimental group which was taught through MSLT including a variety of pictorial,…

The present study investigates the impact of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) on Iranian EFL learners' reading comprehension performance. Seventy participants were assigned randomly to the experimental and control groups. Having instructed the two groups with the same texts but different task types and activities (i.e., tasks in 4 types) during…

This article reports the results of an experimental study on the relative effectiveness of the Paideia Seminar in improving the comprehension of poetry and decreasing reading anxiety. The participants (n = 50) were English as a foreign language (EFL) ninth grade learners enrolled in classrooms at a public school in Lebanon. The study employed a…

The growing number of students whose primary language does not match the language of their schools and a steadily growing performance gap has prompted widespread attention to support emergent literacy gains for those students. This study randomly assigned schools in a Southwestern U.S. state with English language learners (ELLs) in kindergarten…

A yearlong classroom-based intervention was designed to explore the reading-writing connection in second-language literacy by examining whether the development of reading improves writing and vice versa. Middle school learners of English as a foreign language (N = 300) in South Korea were assigned to three treatments that involved extensive…

The purpose of this study is to determine which reading strategies students use while learning Turkish as a foreign language and investigate the effects of these strategies on reading comprehension skill. Conducted in compliance with "pretest-posttest control group model" as the experimental design, this research involved totally 36…

A quasi-experimental research design was used to investigate the effectiveness of synthetic phonics in the development of early reading skills among struggling young English as a second language (ESL) readers in a rural school. The pretest and posttest, adapted from the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) for Preschool Students and…

Today there is an increasing amount of research promoting the effectiveness of extensive reading (ER) towards increasing learners' vocabulary, comprehension, reading speed, and motivation towards reading. However, little has been done to measure the effects of ER on learners' reading levels. This quantitative study examined the effects of ER on…

"A picture is worth a thousand words." In a modern-day classroom, students are surrounded by visual imagery through textbooks, notice boards, television, videos, or computers. Many middle school classrooms are filled with colorful pictures and photographs. However, it is unclear how--or if --these images impact the middle school ESL…

Anxiety is a psychological factor commonly associated with such feelings as fear, apprehension and uneasiness. It is an individual's affective reaction to a perceived or a real threat (MacIntyre, 1995). Foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA) refers to one's negative attitudes which may, to some extent, account for the inhibition that s/he suffers…

This experimental study aims to investigate the effects of using cooperative learning to enhance the English reading comprehension and learning motivation of EFL freshmen by comparing the cooperative learning instruction and traditional lecture instruction. This experiment was implemented in a Freshman English Reading course, a two credit course,…

This paper presents an effectiveness study of a computer-based English reading program, the Waterford Early Reading Program (WERP), among first and second grade students in Israel. Students who used the program were compared to a control group only receiving English as a foreign language (EFL) instruction as part of the school curriculum. First…

Most previous studies in blended learning simply involved on-site and online instruction without considering students' control of their own learning in these two different modalities. The purpose of this study was to investigate how college students with English reading difficulties integrate their conceptions of and approaches to blended learning…