Students engage in higher-order thinking as they read complex texts and perform complex reading-related tasks. However, the most consequential assessments, high-stakes tests, are currently limited in providing information about students' higher-order thinking. In this article, we describe higher-order thinking in relation to reading. We provide a…

According to recently published national standards, elementary students should engage in engineering design activities. This article outlines ways that teachers can use literacy instruction to support young students' engineering design activity, such as by selecting texts in which characters face problems that can be solved through engineering,…

In response to the ACTFL's Research Priorities Initiative, the present study used a multiple case study design to examine teacher candidates' ability to implement two high-leverage teaching practices: increasing interaction and target language comprehensibility and questioning to build and assess student understanding. Candidates implemented these…

In two experiments, we compared effects of instructions that encourage learners to create referential connections between words and pictures with instructions that distract learners from creating referential connections. In Experiment 1, students read a scientific text under four conditions. In the text-picture condition, students read the…

Background: A number of studies have suggested that language in individuals with Down syndrome (DS) may not be simply delayed compared with language in typically developing (TD) children, but deviant. The deviance has been detected in the comprehension of pronouns, and it has triggered proposals for the existence of a specific syntactic deficit in…

The aim of this research was to investigate how undergraduate students conceptualise feedback, and compare this with research into conceptions of teaching and learning related phenomena in higher education. Using a phenomenographic approach, 28 physiotherapy students in New Zealand were interviewed about their experiences. Data analysis resulted…

Even though recurring criticism has been directed against the academic part of teacher education, little research has focused on student teachers as they engage in their academic studies. Reporting on a study of 53 Norwegian student teachers, this article explores student teachers' reading practices in university courses in education. The study…

Although a reader's text-level comprehension is affected by the comprehension of individual sentences in a text, little attention has been paid to the difficulty of sentences. This study investigates whether measures (features) of text difficulty affect the "gradience" observed in sentence difficulty judgments. We examine two traditional…

This study investigated the attributes of 297 instances of student mathematical thinking during whole-class interactions that were identified as having the potential to foster learners' understanding of important mathematical ideas (MOSTs). Attributes included the form of the thinking (e.g., question vs. declarative statement), whether the…

Reading skills are the key building blocks of a child's formal education. Yet, the national statistics on literacy attainment are profoundly distressing: two out of three American fourth graders are reading below grade level and almost one third of children nationwide lack even basic reading skills. This study reports on an evaluation of the…

The purpose of this phenomenological bound case study was to explore the effect of acquiring sight words on reading fluency and comprehension skills for early literacy learners during a summer reading camp at one elementary campus in south Texas. Study findings indicated that through prescribed learning experiences with sight words that included…

This study aimed to replicate findings that demonstrated impact on students' reading comprehension and social studies content learning. Using a randomized control trial, intervention, and outcome measures, this study was replicated in 85 8th-grade social studies classes with 19 teachers. Teachers were provided professional development on…

This study aimed to replicate findings that demonstrated impact on students' reading comprehension and social studies content learning. Using a randomized control trial, intervention, and outcome measures, this study was replicated in 85 8th-grade social studies classes with 19 teachers. Teachers were provided professional development on…

The simple view of reading posits that reading comprehension can be decomposed into a print-specific component (concerning decoding and sight word reading) and a language comprehension component (concerning verbal and metalinguistic skills not related to print). One might properly consider lexical skills, indexed by vocabulary measures, part of…

As far as reading comprehension is concerned, background knowledge bears significance for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners who take high-stake tests such as M.A. University Entrance Examination. The reading part of this test can pose a challenge for Iranian EFL test takers, some of whom may have enough background knowledge to enhance…