The Text Feature Walk is a structure created and employed by the authors that guides students in the reading of text features in order to access prior knowledge, make connections, and set a purpose for reading expository text. Results from a pilot study are described in order to illustrate the benefits of using the Text Feature Walk over…

After decades of what seemed to be an inexorable upward path, the number of students classified as learning-disabled declined from year to year over much of the past decade--a change in direction that is spurring debates among experts about the reasons why. The percentage of 3- to 21-year-old students nationwide classified as having a…

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine the effect of task-focused behaviour on reading fluency, spelling and comprehension; and (b) to examine the role of the different literacy skills in subsequent task-focused behaviour. Two hundred and seven Finnish-speaking children were followed from preschool until their fourth year at school…

Practitioners are often faced with the national legislation's influence at the school-based curricular level. In the United States, the federal government No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 mandates reading instruction at the early primary grade levels. The position of "literacy coach" was created to support this curriculum change by…

The present study investigated the influence direct reading instruction had on university student teachers' reading cognition and the influence their theoretical perspectives had on their pedagogical practices. The study was conducted on all the seven year 2 (2008) Bachelor of Education (primary) students at the University of Swaziland.…

Many factors affect attitudes toward reading, including parent and other caretaker support, sibling attitudes, school and library programs, curriculum and instruction, and, of course, teachers. While working with preservice teachers pursuing licensure in pre-kindergarten through adolescent education, it became evident that the students had many…

This article describes a qualitative study of discussion patterns within guided reading groups in a struggling metropolitan school. The study involves analysis of reader response to literature through discussion within teacher-led and student-led contexts. Transcripts of discussions surrounding texts, teacher interviews, and student surveys were…

Growth curve analyses showed that (a) word-level phonological and orthographic awareness show greatest growth during the primary grades but some additional growth thereafter, and (b) three kinds of morphological awareness show greatest growth in the first three or four grades but one--derivation--continues to show substantial growth after fourth…

This article shares the voices of preadolescent girls as they participated in an eight-month book selection study which enabled them to be active agents in their book and reading experiences. The girls, school-identified as struggling readers and self-identified as resistant readers, complicate current notions of reading, as influenced by…

The reading workshop approach has been found to successfully improve students' reading comprehension and attitudes toward reading. "Reading workshop" is a term that initially referred to reading sessions that encouraged and supported the independent reading of literature, and it traditionally included reading minilessons, independent silent…

Low literacy levels in adult learners pose an educational and public health challenge to practitioners and the scientific community. Increasing demands placed on literacy can limit opportunities in the workplace and access to health-related resources, negatively affecting public health. Current estimates from the National Center for Education…

In this study, confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the interrelationships among latent factors of the simple view model of reading comprehension (word recognition and language comprehension) and hypothesized additional factors (vocabulary and reading fluency) in a sample of 476 adult learners with low literacy levels. The results…

This paper reports on the use of an English-language reading practice application for an Android tablet computer with students who are not native speakers of English. The application materials for vocabulary learning in reading-passage contexts were created to include words from a database of low-frequency and technical noun-verb collocations…

Supplemental Instruction (SI) has widely been used in university classrooms around the world. However, many obstacles face SI -- including low student attendance, lack of faculty support, and recognition of today's online generation. This research helps to fill the gap in SI by posing to solve the problems mentioned above by extending SI into the…

State tests, which assess reading comprehension, ask students to make inferences and connections beyond the text. The problem of practice in which this study is situated is that students are having difficulty making meaningful connections and developing inferences in relation to the material that is read aloud together in class or assigned for…