This intervention study was conducted to assess the effects of three instructional approaches to L2 listening. That is, a metacognitive pedagogical cycle, an awareness-raising approach which combined reflections and short discussions of factors associated with successful L2 listening, and an approach that incorporated vocabulary as a prelistening…

Prosody is an important indicator of reading development, but many teachers are unclear about how it can help students improve their reading fluency. Beyond demonstrating expressive or flowing reading, specific components of "reading prosody" can distinctly reveal how well word recognition and comprehension processes coalesce, providing…

International comparative measures show that South Africa has extremely low standards in reading. A variety of programmes aimed at boosting reading have been developed, however, the effectiveness of these programmes is unclear. Prior reviews of effective reading instruction practices have focused almost exclusively on learners whose first language…

Background: This study analyzes the use of a text-related question strategy aimed at improving the reading comprehension and reading awareness abilities of a metacognitively trained group of students with reading comprehension difficulties. In an initial Grade 3 primary school students' assessment in the same classroom, some students were…

In the fall semester of 2020, 269 Japanese university students were compared in a quasi-experimental study to determine whether extensive and intensive listening interventions yielded significant gains in L2 listening comprehension. At the beginning of the study, 269 students took a 100-item L2 listening exam, and were randomly placed into an…

Purpose: This study proposed a metacognition-inclusive self-regulated learning (SRL) approach to out-of-class listening practice and explored its impact on learners' listening performance and their reported use of self-regulatory listening strategies. Design/methodology/approach: Participants comprised 45 students learning English at a university…

The current study evaluated the use of the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) instructional approach to teach the TRAP mnemonic (Think before reading, Read a paragraph, Ask what is the main idea/important details, Paraphrase the paragraph) and its impact on youth reading comprehension performance. The TRAP mnemonic was taught to an…

Mind-wandering during reading is often associated with worse comprehension performance. Research suggests that metacognitive competences (i.e., the knowledge about as well as monitoring and regulation of one's own cognitive processes) are positively related to reading performance and may play a role in the prevalence of mind-wandering. However,…

Metaphors are frequently used in daily life. Many children on the autism spectrum have difficulties in comprehending and generating metaphors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an equivalence-based instruction (EBI) procedure aimed at improving comprehension and expression of emotions in metaphors. Four Chinese boys on the spectrum…

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a skill of social cognition recently of interest to literacy researchers. This article presents initial findings from a pilot study investigating the use of ToM to teach theme identification and theme statement formation to beginning readers who are less-skilled in comprehension. The authors designed a brief, 1:1 listening…

More than 800,000 students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are served in U.S. public schools, a number that has increased annually for almost 20 years since Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) included ASD as an eligibility category. These students often experience widespread and persistent reading comprehension challenges. A…

Previous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the Repeated Readings intervention at improving reading fluency and reading comprehension. However, research on the effectiveness of fluency interventions focuses on young children, with limited research on the effects on college-age populations. The primary purpose of the current study was…

More students with disabilities (SWDs) are being educated in the general education classroom than ever before. This means that SWDs are spending more time in middle school science classrooms. SWDs may struggle to access information from science textbooks and lessons for multiple reasons, including reading difficulties. In this article, the authors…

This evaluation study explored a two-year literacy reform effort in a school district with 10 of its 13 elementary schools in the improvement process. Schools were placed in three groups. Group 1 (four schools, 80 teachers) implemented new instructional practices in Year 1 and then added a new curriculum. Group 2 (four schools, 102 teachers)…

This meta-analysis includes experimental and quasi-experimental studies of reading interventions for English learners (ELs) coupled with four specific instructional strategies. The purposes of this meta-analysis were two-fold: (1) to identify the effects of the four instructional strategies (i.e. scaffolding, graphic organizers, interactive read…