The present study aimed to examine the role of phonological--semantic flexibility (PSF) in learning to read Chinese. PSF refers to a specific flexibility applied to process the dual linguistic dimensions of words (i.e., sound and meaning). A correlational study (Study 1) was conducted to determine the unique contribution of PSF to three aspects of…

Professional learning (PL) opportunities are essential for PreK-12 literacy educators, but too often these efforts fail to help teachers develop and deeply engage with their work. This forward-looking book describes keys to providing effective, sustainable literacy PL that values teachers over test scores and capitalizes on social networks and…

Dual language programs are a form of bilingual education in which emergent bilingual students receive instruction for content and literacy in two languages (Thomas & Collier, 2019). Dual language programs are developed from policies founded on ideologies that are based on instruction for monolingual students, therefore favoring predominantly…

Benefits for L2 reading through offering learners extensive reading with listening have been found in empirical studies, but those findings may be under-utilized in academic English preparation settings, due to prioritized test practice in response to high-stakes testing for university matriculation. Self-paced extensive reading with listening…

This conceptual paper addresses the information in developing a comprehensive listening comprehension test to profile learners' listening performance based on international standards. Listening is a fundamental skill in which students need to gain adequate proficiency for their successful in communication and academic achievement. Underpinned by…

This study explored the role of vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in reading comprehension ability of Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) learners. One hundred ninety five CHL students participated in this study and completed a series of measures including two sets of vocabulary knowledge (one consisting of items pertaining to…

The current study examined the contribution of cross-language phonological and morphological awareness to reading acquisition in bilingual children. Participants were 140 children (M[subscript age] = 8.26 years) between Grades 1-4 who learned Chinese as their first language and English as their second language. Awareness of phoneme, onset-rime,…

Scaffolding has been shown to facilitate students' text comprehension and task performance. Yet less is known about the necessity of scaffolding for competent students reading unfamiliar content. To explore that question, we investigated the effects of two knowledge scaffolding techniques (i.e., mobilization and concept mapping) versus control on…

To evaluate the sensitivity of multiple-choice cloze (MCC) tests that use different types of items--syntactic, semantic, and connective--to assess reading ability, 170 English as a foreign language (EFL) students in a vocational college in Taiwan were recruited. The students were divided into two groups (level A and level B) based on their scores…

This study examined the impact of using cultural materials on listening comprehension among male and female Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 96 upper-intermediate male (n = 48) and female (n = 48) EFL learners out of 130, were chosen through administering an Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). The participants of each gender were randomly…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the context clue instruction program to infer meaning from context as a way to enhance reading comprehension. Participants were fifth-grade middle school students (four boys) who were at a frustration reading level (initial comprehension score range = 40%-48%) at their grade level. In…

This paper highlights the importance of developing a good understanding of the topic of function. Topic of function becomes a building block for students to understand many more complex topics of mathematics. Specifically, this study aimed to investigate the relationship of students' level of understanding between function and quadratic functions.…

Thirty years of intervention research on the effects of reading comprehension strategies for students with learning disabilities was reviewed in this quantitative synthesis. Specifically, researchers targeted studies that contained self-regulated learning components. A systematic search yielded 18 studies from nine research journals that met…

Background knowledge is a strong predictor of reading comprehension, yet little is known about how different types of background knowledge affect comprehension. The study investigated the impacts of both domain and topic-specific background knowledge on students' ability to comprehend and learn from science texts. High school students (n = 3,650)…

Background: The lexical quality hypothesis proposes that successful reading comprehension requires high quality lexical representations, which allow for efficient retrieval. These retrieval operations have however not been specified. Methods: We investigated the contribution of semantic retrieval to reading comprehension in 119 Dutch children in…