Texts classified according to guided reading levels (GRL) are ubiquitous in US beginning reading classrooms. This study examined features of texts across three grade bands (kindergarten, early first grade, final first grade) and the 10 GRLs within these bands. The 510 texts came from three programs with different functions in beginning reading…

Sentence stems are widely used by teachers, but what do we know about developing sentence stems and using them effectively? Sentence stems are intended to facilitate students' participation in academic conversations and writing and support students to develop the language expected in school, but sometimes the stems do not provide the support…

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of parallel reading text (English and Arabic) on English as a Foreign language (EFL) Intermediate II level students? at Birzeit University in terms of reading comprehension, vocabulary retention, and sentence structure awareness. The sample for this study is 38 undergraduate students of the…

The ability to understand sentences contributes to students' reading comprehension. However, many reading programs tend to underemphasize explicit instruction aimed at enhancing students' knowledge of sentence structures. Children with language impairments, students with learning disabilities, and English language learners may particularly benefit…

Structured Literacy (SL) approaches are often recommended for students with dyslexia and other poor decoders (e.g., International Dyslexia Association, 2017). Examples of SL approaches include the Wilson Reading System (Wilson, 1988), Orton-Gillingham (Gillingham & Stillman, 2014), the Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program (Lindamood &…

This paper outlines a sequence of strategies that are designed to enable every child to experience pleasure in reading narrative literature, and to achieve success in writing, both their own stories and the responses to literature expected by the school curriculum. To enable these goals, literary texts are analysed at three scales: whole literary…

This study used a mixed-method approach to investigate the effectiveness of Readers Theater (RT) in promoting English as a foreign language children's reading and writing proficiency after a participation period of one semester. In addition, the researcher recorded and analyzed children's learning motivation and feedback toward RT. The…

On the ground that reading fluency entails appropriate phrasing or prosody as well as facile word recognition, we investigated the effectiveness of text-based and word-based repeated readings procedures for promoting fluency of reading aloud and comprehension in second-grade children. Repeated readings of text printed with spaces between phrases…

Seven basic sentence constructions are presented as essentials for students progressing from beginning to advanced Japanese: equational existential, active verbal, stative verbal, sentential modifier, subordinate complex, coordinate compound. The constructions should be introduced at beginning levels, and the logical properties they share with…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if training in syntactic structures would increase reading performance of junior high school students. A total of 46 students in a predominately white middle class suburban school district who were reading at least two years below grade placement were divided into two groups: 24 students were…

The purposes of the study were to conceptualize and operationally define three classes of the skills by which knowledge is acquired from written language, and determine whether the skills represent homogenous classes of behaviors and are hierarchically related. (Author/DG)

This paper describes a set of sentence meaning skills which has been identified to help teachers better focus their instruction in reading comprehension. The specific skills in the sentence meaning strand are developed through two sets of objectives: an analysis aspect, where the focus is on identification and understanding of details, and a…

Sector analysis (in which the three parts of a simple sentence are the subject, predicate, and sentence adverbial) provides clear steps for developing literal questions. Research indicates that those based on the predicate lead to more learning and better understanding. (JM)

In this practitioners' guide, a recognized reading expert explains how educators, parents, and concerned citizens can spot ineffective reading programs that may hide under the "scientifically-based" banner. Although the term "whole language" is not commonly used today, programs based on its premises remain popular. These…

Discusses the problems of Japanese students learning to read German; their two years of German at the university are inadequate. A "profile" of minimum reading competence is presented, followed by suggestions for teaching, including vocabulary, sentence structure, and types of text exercises. (IFS/WGA)