Although assessment of student progress in word reading skills is common, students' knowledge and skills for comprehending informational text are rarely assessed. Despite research indicating the need for instruction in this area and a growing national understanding of its importance that is reflected in the Common Core State Standards, few…

Research on textual enhancement (TE) has given rise to several factors that may play a role in generating learners' noticing of target forms, one of which pertains to the nature of the target form(s). In particular, results have suggested that learners are more likely to notice more meaning-bearing forms than less meaning-bearing forms.…

This paper examines the degree to which British adults participating in workplace literacy courses improved their reading comprehension skills, using longitudinal data which cover the period from enrolment until between two and three years later. Learners were tested using an instrument designed explicitly for adults, with two parallel forms. For…

This study examined the predictive utility of five formative reading measures: words correct per minute, number of comprehension questions correct, reading comprehension rate, number of maze correct responses, and maze accurate response rate (MARR). Broad Reading cluster scores obtained via the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ III) Tests of Achievement…

In this study we assessed the effects of paragraph length on the reading speed and comprehension of students. Students were randomly assigned to one of three groups: short paragraph length (SPL), medium paragraph length (MPL), or long paragraph length (LPL). Students read a 1423 word text on a computer screen formatted to align with their group…

Effective fluency instruction should focus on reading with understanding, rather than simply reading quickly or expressively. This article outlines three research-based instructional approaches that assist students in developing accurate, automatic word recognition and prosody; at the same time, they ensure learners attend to the text's meaning as…

This study is aimed at identifying reading strategies of beginning learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) with and without a pop-up dictionary and at determining if learners retain the reading comprehension gained from using the dictionary. Beginning CFL learners at a Midwestern university answered questions about their reading strategies…

The purpose of this study was to identify students at risk of reading comprehension difficulties by using the responsiveness to intervention (RTI) approach. The participants were 177 students in Grades 1-3 in three elementary schools in South Korea. The students received Tier 1 instruction of RTI from March to May 2011, and their performance was…

Each disciplinary community has its own criteria for determining what counts as evidence of knowledge in their academic field. The criteria influence the ways that a community's knowledge is created, communicated, and evaluated. Situating reading, writing, and language instruction within the content areas enables teachers to explicitly…

Various sequences for teaching genetics have been proposed. Three seventh-grade biology textbooks in Taiwan share similar key knowledge assemblages but have different knowledge arrangements. To investigate the influence of knowledge arrangements on student understanding of genetics, we compared students' reading comprehension of the three texts…

It is unknown if the developmental path of antonym knowledge in deaf children increases continuously with age and correlates with reading comprehension, as it does in hearing children. In the current study we tested 564 students aged 4-18 on a receptive multiple-choice American Sign Language (ASL) antonym test. A subgroup of 138 students aged 7-18…

The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of two types of cooperative learning groups used in reciprocal teaching (RT) classes (i.e. high-structured vs. low-structured groups) for enhancing students' reading comprehension. The participants were 235 Hong Kong Chinese Grade 6 students in nine classes. Reading comprehension tests and…

The purpose of this quasi experimental research study was to examine the effects of two direct instruction programs, SRA Reading Mastery Signature and SRA Reading Success on reading comprehension skill acquisition of middle school students who qualify as a student with a specific learning disability. Furthermore, the study was used to compare the…

This quantitative study examined the data collected from the students who participated in a reading intervention and compared their growth rate after one year of implementation to their growth rate prior to the intervention. The study was conducted in an affluent school corporation located in Indiana. The study evaluated the effectiveness of this…

In this correlational study, we analyzed data from 71 Spanish-English biliterate students in grades 3 (n=21), 4 (n=23), and 5 (n=27) with the goal of investigating the applicability of the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990) in English and in Spanish for this population. The simple view posits that decoding…