Background: Children who have poor vocabulary knowledge are at risk of wider language weaknesses and reading comprehension difficulties, which will impact upon their educational achievement. The central question addressed in this paper is how best to teach new vocabulary items to these children. Aims: To investigate the effects of two different…

This study compared two approaches for teaching a history unit on the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1965) to middle school students with learning disabilities (LD) in general education settings. The curriculum was designed to make the content challenging, but accessible. The major text was the documentary, Eyes on the Prize (DeVinney, 1991).…

Graphic novels help all different types of learners. For children who are incapable of visualizing a story, the artwork helps them create context. Graphic elements also attract visually dependent readers, who then freely read the text, and help reluctant readers understand the plot of a story. Finally, graphic novels cross gender lines. In this…

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the applicability of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and the concept of dynamic assessment to the problem of assessing reading comprehension in English as a third language (L3). The study was conducted with immigrant students from Ethiopia studying at pre-academic centers in Israel. The assessment procedure…

In a case study, I applied philosophical hermeneutic principles in an advanced level EFL writing class in Taiwan. A "fusion of horizons" occurs at the junction of two intertwined interpretations: one from our socio-historical tradition and the other from our experience of novel phenomena. I explored students' hermeneutic horizons in…

A new measure of reading comprehension, the Diagnostic Assessment of Reading Comprehension (DARC), designed to reflect central comprehension processes while minimizing decoding and language demands, was pilot tested. We conducted three pilot studies to assess the DARC's feasibility, reliability, comparability across Spanish and English,…

Numerous studies have shown that thinking aloud while reading can be an effective instructional technique in helping students improve their reading comprehension. However, most of the studies that examined the effects of think-aloud involve subjects reading individually and carried out in isolation away from the classroom context. Recently,…

This meta-analysis offers decision-makers research-based guidance for intervening with adolescent struggling readers. The authors outline major implications for practice: (1) Adolescence is not too late to intervene. Interventions do benefit older students; (2) Older students with reading difficulties benefit from interventions focused at both the…

Students demonstrated their reading comprehension skills by responding to questions about various types of reading passages on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment. Reading abilities were assessed in the contexts of literary experience, gaining information, and performing a task. A nationally…

Accessible and user-friendly, this volume presents evidence-based practices for integrating language and literacy knowledge to enhance children's learning in today's standards-based classrooms. While grounded in theory and research, the book focuses on day-to-day concerns in instruction and intervention, identifying models for effective…

Previous studies have shown that phonological awareness correlates with children's reading aloud and also adults' literacy experience. More recent research has further suggested that phonological awareness is associated with the processing of spoken language, which is a correlate of reading comprehension. In this paper, I argue that phonological…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the nature of reading comprehension processes while reading on the Internet. Eleven sixth-grade students with the highest combination of standardized reading scores, reading report card grades, and Internet reading experiences were selected from a population of 150 sixth graders in three…

A group of seventh- and eighth-grade Italian students with low achievement (LA) in learning English as a foreign language (FL) was selected and compared to a group with high achievement (HA) in FL learning. The two groups were matched for age and nonverbal intelligence. Two experiments were conducted to examine the participants' verbal and…

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends 2013, taking place in Madrid, Spain, from 26 to 28 of April. Our efforts and active engagement can now be rewarded with these three days of exciting new developments about what we are passionate about: Psychology and its connections. We take pride…

This paper addresses the controversial issues of improving the reading skills of young learners through technology-assisted reading programmes. On reporting the results of primary school learners from grade 2 to grade 7 who participated in a computer-based reading programme for seven months, we try to answer the critical questions of whether…