Students are struggling to read proficiently at alarming rates. Although pedagogical reading philosophies have varied over the past decades, there continues to be reading deficiencies; this is especially prevalent in our students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Teachers struggle with best practices of reading instruction as well…

The purpose of this study was to determine the changes in children's reading motivation and self-perception through small group reading instruction in Reader's Workshop. The academic achievement gap displays many reading challenges for African American students compared to their peers. The goal of this study was to identify small group readings…

This book discusses how to approach critical literacy in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. It responds to the concerns of educators who get enthusiastic about teaching critical literacy, but become perplexed when they start reading about its theories. This causes some to avoid it altogether and leads others to argue for practicing it…

The purpose of this study examines the impact of an instructional strategy on kindergarten children's narrative skills. The strategy was based on Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) principles and was adapted for kindergarten children. The sample consisted of 85 children aged 5-6, attending six kindergarten classes in Crete, Greece. The…

This paper presents an up-to-date overview of how students in Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) in Spanish public schools, aged between 11 and 16, approach the media, how they inform themselves, the degree of journalistic discrimination they have, and how they deal with the news in times of an infodemic and disinformation. In addition, it…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of reading tasks delivered through WhatsApp on students' achievements in English reading comprehension and explore students' views on the process. A mixed-method research model was used. The participants were 54 seventh grade students, aged 11-12, who were divided into experimental and control…

This study examined whether optimism is a unique predictor of fourth and fifth graders' academic performance. The few studies that have examined this relationship with students in middle childhood have ignored relevant covariates and have focused on higher socioeconomic White students. In the present study, we examined the relationship between…

National and International standardized assessments have shown sharp differences between native and foreign students' performance in both text comprehension and mathematics. Based on the data gathered yearly by the INVALSI (Italian National Institute for the Evaluation of Educational Systems) at the national level, we performed a two-step…

The aim of this study is to investigate the cross-cultural measurement invariance of the reading skills items of the PISA 2018 at test and item level. Another aim of the study is to determine the item bias for items that do not show cross-cultural measurement invariance in line with expert opinions. A survey model was used in the study. The study…

Genetic studies show that children's reading achievement is in part genetically influenced, and intervention studies show that reading achievement can be increased by environmental interventions. However, correlational and mean-level analytic strategies are rarely integrated into achievement research, potentially leading to misinterpretation of…

Children growing up in disadvantage are more vulnerable to speech, language, and literacy difficulties, which are important in the acquisition of many different life skills. Despite supported playgroups engaging directly with families living in disadvantage, very few speech and language studies have been delivered within this setting. This study…

Research has shown that interactive book reading in early childhood classrooms contributes to children's language development. High quality interaction during book reading has been shown to be even more beneficial for children's language development, but more research is needed on which interaction practices really work, as there is great…

Research Findings: The focus of the current study was on the frequency and type of number talk of 2.5- and 4-year-old Argentinean children and their mothers (N = 23 dyads) in shared counting-type picture book reading. The book included sets of animals in ascending order (from 1 to 9), with their corresponding numerals and the animals' written…

Background: Education decision makers are increasingly expected to use evidence to inform their actions. However, the majority of educational interventions have not yet been studied and it is challenging to produce high quality research evidence quickly enough to influence policy questions. Aims and objectives: We set out to gather evidence on the…

Situated within the Simple View of Reading, this study examined the code-related (word reading) and oral language (receptive vocabulary, narrative comprehension, narrative production) skills that contribute to English and Arabic reading comprehension in two groups of Arabic-English bilingual children (7-9 and 10-12 years) living in an English…