Decoding, building fluency, and exploring word and sentence meanings are important elements of literacy instruction in elementary classrooms. Shared literacy experiences provide opportunities for teachers to engage students in meaningful reading experiences. This article describes a quick four-step process for conducting close sentence reading, a…

The present research aimed to determine the circumstances under which comprehension between paper and e-readers is comparable and what role working memory plays in successful comprehension of text presented in these formats. Narrative and expository texts were presented in electronic and paper formats to determine whether readers glean different…

We conducted a multisite replication study with aspects of preregistration in order to explore the feasibility of such an approach in second language (L2) research. To this end, we addressed open questions in a line of research that has examined whether having learners attend to form while reading or listening to a L2 passage interferes with…

Few hypotheses in the field of literacy have proven as robust as the Simple View of Reading (SVR). Two studies included in this special issue use large participant samples and sophisticated quantitative analyses to confirm the basic claim of the SVR, that decoding and listening comprehension together predict reading comprehension. One also…

While previous research has identified numerous factors that contribute to item difficulty, studies involving large-scale reading tests have provided mixed results. This study examined five selected-response item types used to measure reading comprehension in the Pearson Test of English Academic: a) multiple-choice (choose one answer), b)…

Listening comprehension and word decoding are the two major determinants of the development of reading comprehension. The relative importance of different language skills for the development of listening and reading comprehension remains unclear. In this 5-year longitudinal study, starting at age 7.5 years (n = 198), it was found that the shared…

Background and Aim: The effects of text cohesion and added pictures on acquired knowledge have been heavily studied each in isolation. Furthermore, studies on the effects of specific characteristics of pictures, whether facilitating or hindering, are scarce. Schnotz's ITCP Model (2014) allows to formulate hypotheses regarding the combined effect…

The persuasiveness of anecdotal evidence and statistical evidence has been investigated in a large number of studies, but the combination of anecdotal and statistical evidence has hardly received research attention. The present experimental study therefore investigated the persuasiveness of this combination. It also examined whether the quality of…

The transition to college may present beginning college learners with novel academic opportunities and challenges, including the requirement to learn independently from complex college-level texts. Several achievement motivation factors may play a role in explaining differences in beginning college learners' use of deep-level reading comprehension…

As a literacy instructor at a university, I regularly administered a questionnaire on reading habits and attitudes as part of the teacher education program. The findings from the surveys aligned with the results of extant literature on the prevalence of aliteracy among pre-service teachers (Applegate & Applegate, 2004; Applegate et al., 2014;…

Secondary students who struggle with reading often have deficits in the area of reading comprehension. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of explicit main idea and summarization instruction on reading comprehension of expository text for alternative high school students. The lead researcher explicitly taught participants how to…

Every word signifies multiple senses. Many studies using comprehension-based measures suggest that polysemes' senses (e.g., "paper" as in "printer paper" or "term paper") share lexical representations, whereas homophones' meanings (e.g., "pen" as in "ballpoint pen" or "pig pen")…

Science texts use various text features and multiple representations to communicate meaning to their readers. English science texts are challenging for elementary-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Taiwan because they are familiar with reading language-controlled texts from textbooks. Teaching students to make use of various…

The aim of this research is to develop a new practice to enhance the success and attitudes of the middle school students. With this in mind, the competition activity was designed by reading. The effect of this activity on secondary school students' reading comprehension success and attitudes towards reading was examined. In this research,…

The present study focused on examining how individuals make adaptations while reading non-linear graphic text by examining the role of executive functioning, as well as identifying and describing the reading processes individuals use while reading. Sixty-seven students in Grades 9 through 12 engaged in verbal reporting while reading graphic text,…