Providing a comprehensive survey of cutting-edge work on second language learning, this "Handbook," written by a team of leading experts, surveys the nature of second language learning and its implications for teaching. Prominent theories and methods from linguistics, psycholinguistics, processing-based, and cognitive approaches are…

Current educational standards call for students to engage in the skills of research and inquiry, with a focus on gathering evidence from multiple information sources, evaluating the credibility of those sources, and writing an integrated synthesis that cites evidence from those sources. Opportunities to build strong research skills are critical,…

This article aims at exploring various strategies for coping with the auditory processing disorder in the light of foreign language acquisition. The techniques relevant to dealing with the auditory processing disorder can be attributed to environmental and compensatory approaches. The environmental one involves actions directed at creating a…

As the ongoing national indicator of what American students know and can do, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading regularly collects achievement information on representative samples of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. Through The Nation's Report Card, the NAEP Reading Assessment reports how well students perform in…

Although a considerable amount of evidence has been amassed regarding the contributions of lower-level word processes, higher-level processes, and working memory to reading comprehension, little is known about the relationships among these sources of individual differences or their relative contributions to reading comprehension performance. This…

Hypertexts include new structural features, such as navigable graphical overviews, that dramatically change the way students interact with texts. Nevertheless, at school students traditionally practice literacy skills appropriate for reading and comprehending printed texts. We explored the possibility that those skills might not be the same as the…

The rise in popularity of YouTube has made the use of short video clips during college classroom instruction a common learning tool. However, questions still remain on how to best implement this learning tool as well as students' perceptions of its use. Blended Learning Theory and Information Processing Theory provide insights into successful…

In our increasingly multicultural and multilingual world, an understanding of how we perceive language, dialects, and linguistic variation and the relationship these features have to language attitude, plays an increasingly important role in shaping social behavior and policy. This study, situated at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience,…

At a time when league tables can be everything, examination grades matter. Perhaps more than many would admit, the cost is a lack of understanding. The new edition of this book provides practical advice about how to support understanding in both children and adults. It is for all teachers and lecturers, experienced or otherwise, who want learners…

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships among measures of comprehension and production for stories depicted in wordless pictures books and measures of memory and attention for 2 age groups. Method: Sixty cognitively healthy adults participated. They consisted of two groups--young adults (20-29 years of age) and older…

Relationships between attention/executive functions and language learning were investigated in students in Grades 4 to 9 (N = 88) with and without specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in multiword syntax in oral and written language (OWL LD), word reading and spelling (dyslexia), and subword letter writing (dysgraphia). Prior…

This cohort-sequential study explored the components of working memory (WM) that underlie second language (L2) reading growth in 450 children at risk and not at risk for reading disabilities (RD) whose first language is Spanish. English language learners designated as balanced and nonbalanced bilinguals with and without risk for RD in Grades 1, 2,…

The study examined how student control over metacognitive prompts in a multimedia environment affects students' ability to solve mathematical problems in immediate comprehension tasks using a multimedia program and a delayed-transfer test. It also examined the effect on metacognitive discourse, mental effort, and engagement with multimedia-based…

The present study investigated (a) whether the perceived cognitive load was different when geometry problems with various levels of configuration comprehension were solved and (b) whether eye movements in comprehending geometry problems showed sources of cognitive loads. In the first investigation, three characteristics of geometry configurations…

In this study we examined asymmetric semantic activation patterns as people listened to conversations and narratives that promoted causal inferences. Based on the hypothesis that understanding the unique features of conversational input may benefit from or require a modified pattern of conceptual activation during conversation, we compared…