The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between the ability to quickly acquire initial mental graphemic representations (MGRs) in kindergarten and fourth grade literacy skills in children with typical language (TL) and children with language impairment (LI). The study is a longitudinal extension of a study conducted by Wolter and…

Background: Deficits in reading airment (SLI), Down syndrome (DS) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Methods: In this review (based on a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge database to 2011), the Simple View of Reading is used as a framework for considering reading comprehension in these groups. Conclusions: There is substantial evidence for…

Many reading comprehension measures require the student to read silently. When students read silently, important information (e.g., consistent reading errors) may not be identified. It may also be difficult to detect a student who is choosing not to read the passage. For this reason, investigating whether there is a significant difference in…

Eye fixation durations during normal reading correlate with processing difficulty, but the specific cognitive mechanisms reflected in these measures are not well understood. This study finds support in German readers' eye fixations for two distinct difficulty metrics: surprisal, which reflects the change in probabilities across syntactic analyses…

In the first year of a pilot program, 18 New York City schools are digging into new ways to accomplish two objectives emphasized in the common-core standards: (1) engage students in increasingly complex texts as they move through school; and (2) help them conquer literacy skills specific to disciplines such as history and science. Spearheaded by…

The ability of working memory skills (measured by tasks assessing all four working memory components), IQ, language, phonological awareness, literacy, rapid naming, and speed of processing at 6 years of age, before reading was taught, to predict reading abilities (decoding, reading comprehension, and reading time) a year later was examined in 97…

This article explores the relationship between early adolescents' understanding of social issues and their comprehension of a fictional story about interracial conflict. It combines qualitative and quantitative analyses to examine the ways in which social awareness and reading comprehension skills may be interrelated when children and adolescents…

We examined text memory in children with word reading deficits to determine how these difficulties impact representations of text meaning. We show that even though children with poor word decoding recall more central than peripheral information, they show a significantly bigger deficit relative to controls on central than on peripheral…

This study examined the influence of three personal factors, namely, prior knowledge about the text topic, external strategy use during reading, and experience in college, on students' comprehension of the relations among controversial texts. Eighty-six 1-year and 80 3-year undergraduate students answered a questionnaire assessing topic knowledge.…

Social psychologists have suggested that language-based ideologies related to "stereotype threat" (i.e. variations in performance-based on ability perceptions of language groups) may affect students' academic achievement regardless of school language support. However, it is unclear whether efforts to support students' first language…

The intention of this study was to establish if the third grade English Language Learners improved reading fluency when using the computerized Waterford Early Reading Program. This quantitative study determined the effectiveness of the Waterford Early Reading Program at two Title I elementary schools. Students not meeting Grade Level Expectations…

The international project described in this paper has been inspired by the Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Projects (TAPP). By 2013, the TAPP network had connected classes in writing, usability testing and/or translation at three universities in the US and several partner universities in Europe, Africa and China. The pedagogical import of these forms…

The main purpose of this study was to bridge the gap between the literature on cognitive variables related to English literacy learning skills, as suggested by the simple view of reading, and the literature on sociocultural variables, specifically acculturation. The sample consisted of 94 Chinese immigrant adolescents from grades 7-12 in Waterloo…

Dyslexia is one of the most common learning difficulties affecting approximately 15 to 20 per cent of the world's population. A large amount of research is currently being conducted in exploring the potential benefits of using Information & Communication Technologies as a learning platform for individuals and especially children with such…

With 73 students at an Iranian university, the present study investigated teacher's effect in topic familiarization in L2 reading context. The participants--Group B with and Group A without the presence of a teacher--experienced four pre-reading treatments and read four passages of unfamiliar topics, after which they were tested on comprehension…