The use of broad theories of reading, social cognition, and social history to frame the study of literacy was investigated, and implications of this relatively recent trend were considered. Sixty-nine articles published between 1992 and 2003 in "Journal of Literacy Research/Journal of Reading Behavior", "Reading Research Quarterly", and "Research…

We measured the increase in reading speed afforded by two currently available systems of coloured overlays: the "Intuitive Overlays," which provide a choice of 30 colours, and the "Eye Level Reading Rulers," which provide a choice of 5. Forty-eight pupils from a local authority primary school who reported experiencing symptoms of visual stress…

In this article, the authors review the research on curriculum-based measurement (CBM) in reading published since the time of Marston's 1989 review. They focus on the technical adequacy of CBM related to measures, materials, and representation of growth. The authors conclude by discussing issues to be addressed in future research, and they raise…

Situated at the intersection of two of the most important areas in educational research today -- literacy and technology -- this handbook draws on the potential of each while carving out important new territory. It provides leadership for this newly emerging field, directing scholars to the major issues, theoretical perspectives, and…

In reading research, studies on good and poor reader characteristics abound. However, these findings remain largely scattered in applied linguistics and cognitive and educational psychology. This paper attempts to synthesize current theory and research on the topic in the past 20 years along 3 dimensions: language knowledge and processing ability,…

We review the Simple View of Reading (SVR) model and examine its nature, applicability and validity. We describe the SVR as an abstract framework for understanding the relationship between global linguistic comprehension and word-reading abilities in reading comprehension (RC). We argue that the SVR is neither a full theory of reading nor a…

The ability to recognize letter patterns within words as a single unit is important for fluent reading. This skill is based on previously established memory representations of common letter patterns. The ability to form these memory representations may be impaired in some poor readers, particularly readers with naming speed deficits (NSD). This…

Having young readers manipulate objects to correspond to the characters and actions in a text greatly enhances comprehension as measured by both recall and inference tests. As a step toward classroom implementation, we applied this manipulation strategy in small (three-child) reading groups. For successive critical sentences, one child would read…

Phonology has been a central concept in the scientific study of dyslexia over the past decades. Despite its central position, however, it is a concept with no precise definition or status. The present article investigates the notion of "phonology" in the tradition of cognitive psychology. An attempt is made to characterize the basic assumptions of…

The ability to derive the meanings of words from supportive story contexts was studied in 45 7- to 8-year-olds. Children read short stories each containing a different novel word and defined the word at the end of each story. There were three intervention sessions. One group was asked to justify their definition and subsequently received feedback…

According to current theories in discourse research, readers monitor a series of 5 situational dimensions during narrative comprehension (Zwaan, Langston, & Graesser, 1995; Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998). These dimensions are time (e.g., the order of events), space (e.g., locations), protagonist (e.g., main character actions), causality (e.g., how one…

The purpose of this study was to examine a model of early reading acquisition that hinged on a phenomenon seldom explored in beginning reading research: a child's concept of word in text. Previous research in early literacy acquisition has centered on the role phonological awareness--the ability to consciously attend to and manipulate the sound…

This article presents three studies that investigate when syntactic constraints become available during the processing of long-distance backwards pronominal dependencies ("backwards anaphora" or "cataphora"). Earlier work demonstrated that in such structures the parser initiates an active search for an antecedent for a pronoun, leading to gender…

This study examined orthographic learning in oral and silent reading conditions. Dutch third graders read, either aloud or silently, short texts containing novel target (pseudo) words. The acquisition of new word-specific orthographic knowledge was assessed several days later by comparing target spellings with homophonic spellings in tasks…

A study examined the dimensions of children's motivation for reading. Eleven different dimensions of reading motivations were proposed, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for reading, perceptions of reading efficacy, social aspects of reading, and reading disincentives. An 82-item questionnaire was developed to measure each dimension,…