Recent scholarship on secondary reading calls for a shift from teaching generic literacy strategies to teaching discipline-specific language and literacy practices (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2008; Moje, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). This call for disciplinary literacy instruction (DLI) reflects the growing recognition that literacy…

In this webinar, Janice A. Dole, Professor and Director of the Reading and Literacy Program in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah, discussed different strategies for delivering literacy instruction to meet a range of student needs, including the ways in which teachers can collaborate with reading specialists to…

This study investigated the role of strategy instruction and working memory capacity (WMC) on word problem solving accuracy in children with (n = 100) and without (n = 92) math difficulties (MD). Within classrooms, children in Grades 2 and 3 were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: verbal-only strategies (e.g., underlining…

This report summarises Year 6 pupils' attainment in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) survey of 2016 in Northern Ireland and explores the context of that attainment. PIRLS is an international comparison study of reading at ages 9-10. PIRLS has a five-yearly cycle. Northern Ireland took part in PIRLS for the second time…

This summary accompanies the national report for Northern Ireland (Sizmur et al., 2017). It outlines the attainment of Year 6 pupils in Northern Ireland in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 survey and explores the context of that attainment. PIRLS is a study of reading at ages 9-10 and has a five-yearly cycle.…

The ability to read written material is very important in the civilized world. In a society characterized by globalization and technological change, where knowledge is becoming increasingly important, reading ability is a key skill for active participation. The intent of the current study is to set out the nature of reading alongside express…

As the second decade of the new millennium begins, the authors state that it would seem appropriate to look once again at the status of literacy education as it affects adolescents and adults. Each year since 1997, an article appears in the periodical "Reading Today" listing the topics in literacy that are receiving varying degrees of attention,…

This study examines three questions: What kinds of think-aloud statements, in particular what kinds of inferences, are made by middle school students while reading expository text? Does thinking aloud affect comprehension as measured by recall and answers to questions? Does thinking aloud add value to the assessment of comprehension beyond what is…

Two experiments examined whether inconsistent effects of analogies in promoting new content learning from text are related to prior knowledge of the analogy "per se." In Experiment 1, college students who demonstrated little understanding of weather systems and different levels of prior knowledge (more vs. less) of an analogous everyday…

How do children know the sentence "the glass is empty and not empty" is inconsistent? One possibility is that they are sensitive to the formal structure of the sentences and know that a proposition and its negation cannot be jointly true. Alternatively, they could represent the 2 state of affairs referred to and realize that these are…

Examining deficits in the development of adolescent literacy, this article explores conceptions of literacy not as a "simple" exercise that merely requires layperson understandings of words, but rather, as research shows, as a deeper action that requires disciplinary knowledge and standing. Vygotsky's distinction between tool users vs.…

This meta-analysis reviewed research on summer reading interventions conducted in the United States and Canada from 1998 to 2011. The synthesis included 41 classroom-and home-based summer reading interventions involving children from kindergarten to Grade 8. Compared to control group children, children who participated in classroom interventions,…

In this study, we examined the longitudinal relations between frequency and features of reading experiences within the preschool classroom to children's language and literacy outcomes in kindergarten and 1st grade. "Frequency" refers to the number of shared reading sessions conducted each week as measured by teachers' written reading…

Lexical inferencing is referred to as guessing the meaning of an unknown word using available linguistic and other clues. It is a primary lexical processing strategy to tackle unknown words while reading. This study aims to explore the clue use of Chinese EFL learners in inferring the meaning of unknown word in reading. Two types of introspective…

The research presented here involved a one-semester study; during this period of time, reading comprehension instruction representing three major discussion-centered approaches (Book Club, BC; Literature Circles, LC; Instructional Conversations, IC) was designed and implemented. The effectiveness of the three experimental approaches and one…