Temporal and causal information in text are crucial in helping the reader form a coherent representation of a narrative. Deaf novice readers are generally poor at processing linguistic markers of causal/temporal information (i.e., connectives), but what is unclear is whether this is indicative of a more general deficit in reasoning about…

Cloze procedure, a technique not originally intended for measurement purposes, has come to be known as the most widely experimented upon testing tool in English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL). Testing experts have indeed used up their energy by constructing and working on various forms of cloze, with the unhappy result that not one person…

A state contacted the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) for guidance in developing a definition of "reading proficiency" and what it means to "read on grade level by third grade." The state also requested information on how national sources or states define and measure proficiency. The state was particularly…

Cognitively based views of reading emphasize that proficient readers use both metacognitive and cognitive strategies that facilitate comprehension of text. Metacognitive strategies are self-monitoring and self-regulating behaviors that focus on the processes and products of reading including the reader's awareness of whether or not he or she…

The aim of the study was to investigate differences in cognitive and metacognitive strategy use in the reading comprehension of narrative and expository texts among students with learning disabilities (SLD) and without learning disabilities (SWOLD). A total of 122 fifth and sixth graders took part in the study. Half of them (n = 61) were SLD…

This study examines the genetic and environmental etiology underlying the development of oral language and reading skills, and the relationship between them, over a long period of developmental time spanning middle childhood and adolescence. It focuses particularly on the differential relationship between language and two different aspects of…

This study investigated the relationship between reading comprehension (RC), trait anxiety, and preoccupation with reading disability (RD) in 88 school children in Grades 3 through 5 and in their mothers. Children's trait anxiety had a significant direct negative relationship with RC and also mediated the association between preoccupation with RD…

It is now possible to create individual-specific genetic scores, called genome-wide polygenic scores (GPS). We used a GPS for years of education ("EduYears") to predict reading performance assessed at UK National Curriculum Key Stages 1 (age 7), 2 (age 12) and 3 (age 14) and on reading tests administered at ages 7 and 12 in a UK sample…

Helping struggling readers to learn history content in middle school can be difficult due to heavy reading demands. In this study, researchers taught poor readers with and without disabilities in eighth grade to generate main idea statements; create, compare, and contrast paragraphs; and identify cause and effect relations, along with relevant…

An experiment was conducted to investigate methods that enable college students to learn the meaning of unknown words as they read discipline-specific academic text. Forty-one college students read specific passages aloud during three sessions. Participants were randomly assigned to three vocabulary learning interventions or a control condition.…

There is no consensus among academics about whether children benefit from smaller classes. We analysed the data from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to test if smaller classes lead to higher performance. Advantages of using this data set are not only its size (478,120 15-year old students in 63 nations) and…

This paper describes an approach to developing intermediate level reading proficiency through a strategic and iterative use of a discreet set of tasks that combine some of the more common metacognitive theories and strategies that have been published in the past thirty years. The case for incorporating this composite approach into reading…

This case study examined the effectiveness of three fluency interventions (i.e., repeated reading, audio listening passage preview and teacher modeled listening passage preview) with a fifth grade student struggling with fluency skills. When compared to baseline, each intervention increased oral reading fluency by the end of the 7 weeks of…

When students read more, vocabulary knowledge increases (Cunningham & Stanovich, 2003; Krashen, 2004). Out of every 100 unknown words that students encounter while reading, they learn an average of 15 of them from text alone (Swanborn & de Glopper, 1999). In addition, as students age, they are more likely to infer word meanings, indicating…

The present study examined whether knowledge of connectives contributes uniquely to expository text comprehension above and beyond reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and metacognitive knowledge. Furthermore, it was examined whether this contribution differs for readers with different language backgrounds or readers who vary in reading…