Poor levels of English first additional language (EFAL) reading comprehension amongst school learners at most public schools in South Africa are a great concern. In fact, for learning to be successful and effective, learners need to be able to read well in EFAL. This is more so as EFAL serves as a language of learning and teaching (LOLT) for most…

The last two decades have seen fast-moving and wholescale changes in the ways that education is now provided in French schools, in the nature of learner assessment, and in the form and scale of system evaluation. Innovation and reform have in part followed international trends, themselves triggered by the global impact of the international…

This experimental study examined how VSTF (Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting)-based text benefits reading speed, reading comprehension, reading efficiency and retention for middle and high school students. Prospective within-subjects tests were conducted in Japan on a total of 132 students: 76 high school students from 12th grade and 56 middle…

The current study examined the proficiency of Israeli adolescents in reading single words in English, which is taught as a foreign language, and what language skills predict individual variability. Parallel measures of word reading, phonology, decoding, morpho-syntax and vocabulary in Hebrew and English were administered to 217 adolescents in 8th…

The present exploration aimed to assess a reading level of a young Thai student by using the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI), and to plan reading intervention instruction targeted on the identified needs based on the assessment results. In this study, a single case study approach was employed. A seven-year old Thai learner was the focal…

Wolf and Bowers (1999) described a model in which phonological awareness (PA) and naming speed (NS) make independent contributions to reading ability. We tested this model in a sample of 201 Grade 3 Arabic-speaking children in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Measures of general cognitive ability, vocabulary, PA, NS, word reading, and reading…

Purpose: This study is a quantitative exploration of a new construct the authors label as "academic culture (AC)." Treating it as generalized latent variable composed of academic press (AP), disciplinary climate (DC), and teachers' use of instructional time, the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of this construct to be a…

Previous studies have shown that instruction of reading strategies is an effective method for enhancing reading comprehension. However, many of the interventions in these studies focused on small groups of (poor) comprehenders and were provided by research assistants, making it time-consuming and relatively expensive. The authors implemented a…

This study investigated the relationship between student performance on behavioral measures (reading, language, and executive function) and reading comprehension while reading with and without text-to-speech (TTS) accommodations. Twenty-nine children with reading difficulties ages 8 to 12 years completed a battery of reading, language, and…

Leading scholars (Gilbert, 2009; Walter, 2008) have highlighted the importance of phonological processing in learning to read. Nevertheless, reading in Japan has traditionally been taught without adequate attention to the role of phonological processing. Accordingly, it was speculated that Japanese university students would demonstrate superior…

This study identifies factors predicting reading literacy achievement among Grade 4 students in South Africa by utilizing Vygotsky's social interaction theory. The study draws on the preProgress in International Reading Literacy Study (prePIRLS) 2011 data, which places South African Grade 4 students' results below the international centre point of…

A high comorbidity between reading and arithmetic disabilities has already been reported. The present study aims at identifying more precisely patterns of arithmetic performance in children with developmental dyslexia, defined with severe and specific criteria. By means of a standardized test of achievement in mathematics ("Calculation and…

Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) is a widely-used index of reading ability in early elementary grades; however, little information exists on predictive value of student characteristics on ORF scores (Wang, Algozzine, Ma, & Porfeli, 2011). A three-step sequential model was used to analyze the influence of student characteristics on scores (N = 2649)…

Oral language and word reading skills have important effects on reading comprehension. The Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Third Edition (WIAT-III) measures both skill sets, but little is known about their specific effects on reading comprehension within this battery. Path analysis was used to evaluate the collective effects of reading and…

Based on the data of Program for International Student Assessment 2009, this paper examines how various aspects of home literacy environment, school climate and students' reading engagement related to their reading performance. A profile of Hong Kong students' three indices of reading engagement -- namely, reading enjoyment, reading diversity and…