The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) fulfill a longstanding goal of ensuring that all students, regardless of ability, are college and career ready upon graduation. Students who meet the expectations of the standards are able to comprehend complex text closely and extract meaning and information from it. They are close readers, delving into…

Purpose: In 1963, Charles Van Riper published "My Grandfather," a short reading passage that has evolved into a ubiquitous metric of reading ability and speech intelligibility. In this historical note, we describe several heretofore unacknowledged similarities between "The Grandfather Passage" (Darley, Aronson, & Brown, 1975) and a portion of "The…

There is increasing evidence of a relationship between orthographic processing skill, or the ability to form, store and access word representations, and reading ability. Empirical research to date has not, however, clarified the direction of this relationship. We examined this question in a three-year longitudinal study of children from Grades 1…

This paper reports an exploratory investigation of the information-literacy levels of primary 5 students in Hong Kong. Factors such as gender and reading ability were also examined. Primary 5 students from four local schools completed a fourteen-item information-literacy assessment (ILA), which was adopted and modified from questions on the…

Trauma can impact learning, behavior, and social, emotional, and psychological functioning. Traumatized children are more likely to have poorer school performance, decreased I.Q. and reading ability, lower grade point average, and more days of school absence (Stein & Kendall, 2004). Trauma also can alter the way children and adults view themselves…

Much research has been conducted documenting the reading and writing challenges students in pre-college courses face (Crosby, 2007; Masterson, 2007). Some colleges label these courses "developmental," "remedial," or "basic skills" courses. These "developmental" students comprise both US-born and immigrant…

The purpose of the present cross-age study with South Korean students was to investigate the relationship of age and years of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) exposure with English-reading ability. The main research question was, "Do individuals' age and number of years of English exposure interact in relation to English-reading…

In transparent orthographies like German, isolated learning disabilities in either reading or spelling are common and occur as often as a combined reading and spelling disability. However, most issues surrounding the cognitive causes of these isolated or combined literacy difficulties are yet unresolved. Recently, working memory dysfunctions have…

This author observes that, in Taiwan, economic, social, and cultural differences within the population are associated with great disparities in English proficiency among students in elementary schools. When teachers differentiate instruction, they consciously and conscientiously make the content, processes, and learning outcomes of instruction…

Background: Young children are often required to carry out writing tasks in an educational context. However, little is known about the patterns of writing skills that children with specific language impairment (CwSLI) have relative to their typically developing peers. Aims: To assess the written language skills of CwSLI and compare these with…

This article offers five instructional enhancements that help students become better readers. These classroom practices coincide with five key elements of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading instruction: "extensive practice and exposure to print," "commitment to building student motivation," "attention to reading…

Reading difficulties in elementary school-aged children may occur when two components of reading--word identification, comprehension, or both of these skills--are weak or underdeveloped (Gough, 1972; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Joshi & Aaron, 2000; Savage, 2001). One type of reading difficulty that is frequently identified by teachers is known…

We examined reading comprehension in children with ADHD by assessing their ability to build a coherent mental representation that allows them to recall central and peripheral information. We compared children with ADHD (mean age 9.78) to word reading-matched controls (mean age 9.89) on their ability to retell a passage. We found that even though…

Little empirical evidence suggested that independent reading abilities of students enrolled in biology predicted their performance on the Biology I Graduation End-of-Course Assessment (ECA). An archival study was conducted at one Indiana urban public high school in Indianapolis, Indiana, by examining existing educational assessment data to test…

This study implemented an independent silent reading (ISR) program with 145 10th grade students. Students were measured on total reading ability, vocabulary, reading comprehension, a state-mandated high stakes end-of-course test (EOCT), and reading attribution. After controlling for initial skill and disposition levels, the results indicated that…