Background: Vocabulary and domain knowledge are important factors that influence comprehension development. However, these factors have most frequently been examined in relation to reading comprehension and much less frequently examined in relation to listening comprehension. Moreover, almost no empirical studies have examined profiles of…

This study investigated the effects of creative literacy classroom activities on the acquisition of English as a foreign language. Ninety Chinese second graders were tested on reading attitude and English receptive vocabulary knowledge. They were randomly assigned to either a control group or an experimental group, which engaged in English…

Studies have begun to focus on what skills contribute to the development of phonological awareness, an important predictor of reading attainment. One of these skills is the perception of prosody, which is the rhythm, tempo and stress of a language. To examine whether prosodic perception contributes to phonological awareness prior to reading…

This paper reports on the progress made by a small group of fourteen 11-year-old children who had been originally identified as being precocious readers before they started primary school at the age of five. The data enable comparisons to be made with the performance of the children when they were younger so that a six-year longitudinal analysis…