This study explored the extent to which parents were able to scaffold their children's Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) in the context of authentic academic tasks and attempted to identify specific dimensions within the parent-child interaction (socioemotional and instructional) that were related to children's SRL. Fifteen Chilean parents and their…

In recent years there has been a growing interest in autism and information about the disorder has frequently been covered in magazines and newspapers, and on television (Kantrowitz & Scelfo, 2006). According to the Autism Society of America (ASA) (2006), autism is the fastest growing developmental disability with projected annual growth of 10% to…

The inclusion of students with disabilities in large scale assessment and accountability programs has provided new opportunities to examine the impact of special education services on student achievement. Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (1998, 2002) evaluated the effectiveness of special education programs by examining students' gains on a large-scale…

This study compared two groups of intermediate/advanced L2 French learners on a reading comprehension test when presented with or without background knowledge of the text. This study also compared intermediate and intermediate/advanced L2 French learners' reading comprehension when presented with increasing syntactic complexity. The results of…

Comprehending a second language is a complex process that occurs with a few external signs along the way. Out of recent research has come a growing understanding that comprehension is not just understanding words, sentences, or even texts, but involves building a model within the mind of the comprehender (Hammadou, 1991). This paper aims at…

The role of classroom discussions in comprehension and learning has been the focus of investigations since the early 1960s. Despite this long history, no syntheses have quantitatively reviewed the vast body of literature on classroom discussions for their effects on students' comprehension and learning. This comprehensive meta-analysis of…

There are not enough reading tests standardized on adults who have very low literacy skills, and therefore tests standardized on children are frequently administered. This study addressed the complexities and problems of using a test normed on children to measure the reading comprehension skills of 193 adults who read at approximately third…

This study examined how Flesch Reading Ease and text cohesion affect older adults' comprehension of common health texts. All older adults benefited when high Flesh Reading Ease was combined with high cohesion. Older adults with small working memories had more difficulty understanding texts high in Flesch Reading Ease. Additionally, older adults…

This study examined the effects of external strategy use on the comprehension of relations among controversial texts. About 80 undergraduates read six controversial texts for the purpose of either finding intertextual relations or forming their opinion about the controversial issue. Half of them were permitted to use external strategies, the other…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of strategy instruction on the reading literacy of students with mild and moderate intellectual disability. Students aged 15-21 with intellectual disability (n=35) participated in 24 sessions of literacy strategy instruction (experimental condition) or remedial literacy-skill acquisition-…

This experimental study investigated connections between subject expertise and multitasking ability among college students. One hundred thirty college students participated in the study. Participants were assessed on their subject expertise and reading tasks under three conditions: (a) reading only (silence condition), (b) reading with a video…

Despite an extensive literature linking individual differences in phonological processing to reading ability, some adults show normal text comprehension abilities despite poor pseudoword reading (Jackson & Doellinger (2002). "Journal of Educational Psychology," 94, 64-78). This study was undertaken to investigate differences between these…

Schooling improvement initiatives have demonstrated that moderate but significant achievement gains are possible with well designed interventions, but there is little research into whether these gains can be sustained. The present study examines the extent to which acceleration in achievement made during a three-year literacy intervention and the…

This article reports an analysis of fifth-graders' comprehension strategy use, as it occurred within peer-led literature discussion groups, and the influence of such strategy use on students' post-discussion gains in story comprehension. Data collection occurred across nine weeks. Data sources included transcripts of discussions, transcripts of…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of three different forms of strategy instruction on 210 elementary-school students' reading comprehension. Students were assigned to any one of three intervention conditions or to a traditional instruction condition (control condition). Training students were taught four reading strategies…