The present study examines the relative importance of attributes within and across items by applying four cognitive diagnostic assessment models. The current study utilizes the function of the models that can indicate inter-attribute relationships that reflect the response behaviors of examinees to analyze scored test-taker responses to four forms…

Theoretically framed within Vygotskyan sociocultural theory (SCT) of mind, the present study investigated resurfacing of private speech markers by Iranian elementary female EFL learners in teacher-learner interactions. To this end, an elementary EFL class including 12 female learners and a same-sex teacher were selected as the participants of the…

This study reports on the development of an assessment to measure bilingual adolescents' knowledge of polysemous vocabulary and explores the contribution of polysemous word knowledge to reading comprehension among those students. Spanish-English bilingual students in seventh grade (n = 107) completed a battery of standardized reading and language…

The aim of this study was to investigate the early characteristics of four profiles of readers established in second grade (7-8 years of age): good readers, specific poor decoders, specific poor comprehenders and general poor readers. These profiles were compared retrospectively on a range of measures administered 2 years earlier, in kindergarten.…

This study explores how child and text clues were related to 31 kindergarteners' word-meaning derivation outcomes for 372 words presented in books read aloud to children. Data were analyzed using a multilevel, cross-classification, ordered logit model. Children showed no word-meaning derivation 40% of the time, indicating a need for instruction.…

Most learners studying English language feel that their educators use irrelevant, uninteresting, and culturally unfamiliar reading materials for teaching reading. As a result, most of them struggle to comprehend the English language texts used by the teachers. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate the genre and content preferences…

As students progress through school they spend more time reading to obtain information. Reading to learn can be a struggle for any student, but it tends to be a bigger obstacle for students with disabilities. Using text-to-speech applications and extensions is one way to assist students with disabilities who struggle to independently complete…

Background/Context: In a recent review of culturally relevant instruction and reading comprehension, Fairbanks, Cooper, Masterson, and Webb (2009) highlighted the paucity of research available to support the widespread claim in the literacy field that "students' social and cultural practices are deeply intertwined with literacy learning"…

Few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate the educational uses of graphic novels. Because of this, misconceptions and stereotypes exist. This article presents findings from a study examining the effects of graphic novels on high school students' (N = 217) reading comprehension. A graphic adaptation of a traditionally taught text…

Older student reading of informational texts like those found in most high school classrooms continue to be a concern. College entrance exams scores attest to the fact that this age group of readers remain largely unprepared for the rigorous, discipline area reading and comprehension demands of higher education. In response to this issue content…

We examined sources of morphological variability in second language (L2) learners of Spanish whose native language (L1) is English, with a focus on L1-L2 similarity, morphological markedness, and knowledge type (receptive vs. expressive). Experiment 1 uses event-related potentials to examine noun-adjective number (present in L1) and gender…

The present research tested the hypothesis that the reading of science text can create new misconceptions in students with incongruent prior knowledge, and that these new misconceptions will be similar to the fragmented and synthetic conceptions obtained in prior developmental research. Ninety-nine third- and fifth-grade children read and recalled…

This study examines children's strategies when scanning a document to answer a specific question. More specifically, we wanted to know whether they make use of organizers (i.e., headings) when searching and whether strategic search is related to their knowledge of reading strategies. Twenty-six French fifth graders were asked to search single-page…

Adolescents with learning disabilities disproportionately come from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds, show normative deficits in academic skills, and attend 2-year, public colleges instead of 4-year institutions. However, students with learning disabilities are well represented at the United States' most expensive and selective postsecondary…

This study aimed to examine the effects of different text difficulty levels on foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA) and reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To this end, 50 elementary EFL learners were selected from two intact classes (n = 25 each). Each class was assigned to a text difficulty level (i.e.,…