Purpose: This paper aims to explore the effect of storytelling in helping children read and comprehend English in primary schools. Design/methodology/approach: The study includes 44 eight-year-old students, being divided into two equal groups. They are Catalan/Spanish native speakers, and their English level is pre-A1 (CEFR). The two groups…

This paper discusses the role of scaffolded reading instruction in democratic education. Focusing on a case study of a high school civic unit on the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, it argues the importance of such reading instruction. Students noted the challenges they experienced when reading complex texts on the topic. Yet, scaffolded…

The purpose of the present study was two-fold: (a) First, it examined fairness of Special English Test (SET) of Iranian National University Entrance Exam (INUEE) by analyzing Differential Item Functioning (DIF) with reading comprehension section of this test (b) second, it explored test takers' attitudes towards possible sources of unfairness and…

For decades, educators have relied on readability metrics that tend to oversimplify dimensions of text difficulty. This study examines the potential of applying advanced artificial intelligence methods to the educational problem of assessing text difficulty. The combination of hierarchical machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) is…

The use of technology has now become an integral part of higher education in Malaysia because of its positive outcomes in teaching and learning. Despite its use, students are not able to fully benefit from its full potential. This study investigated the use of digital annotation tools in Interactive Reading for Academic Disciplines to facilitate…

Reading-while-listening has been shown to be advantageous in second language learning. However, research to date has not addressed how the addition of auditory input changes reading itself. Identifying how reading differs in reading-while-listening and reading-only might help explain the advantages associated with the former. The aim of the…

We explored potential profiles of interest, attitudes, and source evaluation by performing cluster analysis in a sample of Norwegian upper-secondary students. Differences among the profile groups with regard to multiple-document use were examined. The profile groups were partly consistent with the default stances described by the…

This study investigated the direct and indirect roles of verbal and visuospatial memory in Chinese reading comprehension. One hundred twenty-eight Cantonese-speaking children participated in the study at the end of their 3rd year of kindergarten in Hong Kong. Both verbal and visuospatial memory were found to be significantly associated with…

Webbed curricula model presents the concept to integrate various subjects in a learning process. It employs several activities that enable students to be capable of providing a meaningful learning and experience for them. This study was aimed at examining the effect of integrated thematic learning that refers to the model of webbed curricula to…

The aim of this study was to examine variation in early reading comprehension development for second language (L2) readers compared with first language (L1) readers and to investigate the impact of vocabulary knowledge in their first and second language. Participants were 75 Dutch monolingual children (L1 readers) and 71 Turkish-Dutch bilingual…

In this qualitative case study, the authors explored the responses of seven Mexican American mothers during a bilingual (Spanish-English) parent book club with a chapter book from their children's elementary school literacy curriculum. The authors sought to better understand the findings of a previous study in which parents expressed new learning…

The relationships between oral reading fluency, reading motivation and reading comprehension were examined at the beginning and the end of second grade among 121 Hebrew speaking students. The contribution of oral reading fluency and three sub-factors of motivation--self-concept as a reader, value attached to reading and literacy outloud (social…

The purpose of this article is to look anew at the concepts of reading, reading development, and reading research as they exist beyond the boundaries of the "science of reading" controversy. The context for this reconceptualization is reading in the digital age and the challenges that today's readers confront daily. Those challenges…

Dowd and Bartlett (2019) tested the reading competencies of second graders attending Save the Children programs in 11 countries. They used sixty-word passages and comprehension questions without time limits and analyzed data of students reading more than 10 words per minute. They found wide disparities in speed among those who showed high…

A formidable challenge facing many Iranian postgraduate English students is critically negotiating their course content which entails a well-developed strategic competence. This quasi-experimental study examined the effect of negotiated strategic awareness-raising (NSA-raising) on English Language Teaching (ELT) and English Literature (EL)…