Educators and researchers have been interested in supporting sentence-level language comprehension for struggling readers, but it has been challenging to research. To investigate the properties of sentences that might be useful targets for future research in instruction and assessment, we coded several features of the items in a computer-adaptive…

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…

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of a multi-component homograph processing intervention complemented by Executive Function (EF) skills on the performance of struggling readers. The researchers focused on measuring improvements in literacy, metalinguistic abilities, cognitive/EF skills acquired during the intervention, and…

In this meta-analysis, we examined whether children identified with reading difficulties (RD) evidence writing difficulties. We included studies comparing children with RD with (a) typically developing peers matched on age (k = 87 studies) and (b) typically developing younger peers with similar reading capabilities (k = 24 studies). Children…

This study examined whether syntactic awareness was related to reading comprehension difficulties in either first language (L1) Chinese or second language (L2) English, or both, among Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children. Parallel L1 and L2 metalinguistic and reading measures, including syntactic word-order, morphological awareness,…

The components involved in adolescent reading are complex and not clearly understood in struggling readers. Phrase reading, a language skill associated with prosodic understanding of syntactic phrases, has received little attention. We studied 70 adolescent readers including delayed readers to answer the following questions: (a) Do phrase-reading…

Semantic illusions are recognition errors that occur when an individual fails to notice that information contradicts their prior knowledge (Barton & Sanford, 1993; Erickson & Mattson, 1981). For example, after hearing the question, "If a plane crashes while flying over state lines, where should the survivors be buried?" many…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss reading comprehension deficits in adolescents in relation to their word reading skills and lexical and syntactic development. Although reading comprehension strategies (e.g., "Find the main idea") are often recommended, it is argued that before these can be effective, students'…

In this paper, we first introduce functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), followed by a review of three themes of neuroimaging research on the neural correlates of reading-related skills: (1) typical and struggling readers, including developmental dyslexics, (2) an inverted U-shaped function in second-language reading that portrays an…

Purpose: Reading and writing are language-based skills, and effective literacy instruction/intervention practices should include an explicit linguistic focus. A multilinguistic structured literacy approach that integrates morphological awareness is proven beneficial to improve reading and writing for students with language literacy deficits. The…

In this paper, we first introduce functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), followed by a review of three themes of neuroimaging research on the neural correlates of reading-related skills: (1) typical and struggling readers, including developmental dyslexics, (2) an inverted U-shaped function in second language reading that portrays an…

This study examines the difficulty shown by Spanish-speaking university students in decoding pre-modified noun phrases (NPs) in English. NPs carry a heavy lexical and conceptual load and foreign language (L2) readers may be challenged by first language (L1) crosslinguistic influence triggered by cognate NPs. Therefore, this study also attempts to…

This study was conducted to understand the reading challenges of underprepared college students. A sample of the participants was enrolled in supplemental literacy programs because they were deemed not ready for reading and writing in college. Community college participants completed a series of measures that assessed foundational skills for…

This study was conducted to understand the reading challenges of underprepared college students. A sample of the participants were enrolled in supplemental literacy programs because they were deemed not ready for reading and writing in college. Community college participants completed a series of measures that assessed foundational skills for…

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the comprehension problems of children who have a specific reading comprehension deficit (SCD), which is characterized by poor reading comprehension despite adequate decoding. The meta-analysis included 86 studies of children with SCD who were assessed in reading comprehension and oral language…