Previous research shows that presenting class material in story formats can improve student learning in lecture classes. This pilot study of eight sociology classes investigates the efficacy of using storytelling as a means to improve student comprehension in online classes. Our findings show that when material is presented in story format rather…

From a developmental framework, relations among list reading fluency, oral and silent reading fluency, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension might be expected to change as children's reading skills develop. We examined developmental relations among these constructs in a latent-variable longitudinal study of first and second graders.…

Purpose: This study investigated the role of processing complexity of verbal working memory tasks in predicting spoken sentence comprehension in typically developing children. Of interest was whether simple and more complex working memory tasks have similar or different power in predicting sentence comprehension. Method: Sixty-five children (6- to…

The present study demonstrated that students with mild intellectual disabilities are capable of constructing meaning from written text by guided social interaction. Participants were 40 adolescents in special schools divided into two intervention conditions: reciprocal teaching (RT) and inference teaching (IT). In RT the students practiced four…

This study was designed to deepen insights on whether word-problem (WP) solving is a form of text comprehension (TC) and on the role of language in WPs. A sample of 325 second graders, representing high, average, and low reading and math performance, was assessed on (a) start-of-year TC, WP skill, language, nonlinguistic reasoning, working memory,…

This study explores the possibilities for learning content that might accompany the use of an historically accurate graphic novel as part of a language arts instructional unit. During a 6-day unit, 16 sixth grade students engaged in graphic novels in ways that support comprehension, both in the context of a graphic novel text set and a specific…

This article reports the results of an experimental study on the relative effectiveness of the Paideia Seminar in improving the comprehension of poetry and decreasing reading anxiety. The participants (n = 50) were English as a foreign language (EFL) ninth grade learners enrolled in classrooms at a public school in Lebanon. The study employed a…

While prevailing research links language proficiency to fundamental literacy acquisition, research is, however, limited when language and literacy acquisition are simultaneous as is the case with young (4-6 years) English language learners (ELLs) in K1, K2 and Grade 1 who acquire first time literacy in an inclusive classroom and in a L2…

The present study tried to investigate one of the options for improving self-directed learning in Iranian EFL learners, i.e., contemplative L2 instruction with a flavor of transformative instruction. Accordingly, it adopted a quasi-experimental design to investigate the influential effects that contemplative teaching would exert on Iranian EFL…

Building on research on the development of reading and use of technology for language learning, this multiple-case study explored English as a second language (ESL) students' perceptions of using a social bookmarking Web 2.0 tool for the development of reading from an ecological perspective. Five students in a community college ESL course in the…

In this longitudinal study, the cross-language transfer from second language (L2) to first language (L1) was examined among Spanish-speaking English-language learners in an English intervention (Grades 1-3) in the southwest United States. Path analysis revealed statistically significant transfers (ps < 0.05) for the treatment group from English…

This experimental study explored the impact of representation + glossary label visuals on science outcomes in a sample of 174 Grade 7 English learners (ELs). Analysis of covariance results indicated that, regardless of English proficiency, ELs in both treatment and control conditions performed similarly on reading comprehension (p = 0.26) and…

We explored the feasibility of using automated scoring to assess upper-elementary students' reading ability through analysis of transcripts of students' small-group discussions about texts. Participants included 35 fourth-grade students across two classrooms that engaged in a literacy intervention called Quality Talk. During the course of one…

Recent findings in the field of pragmatics have revealed that pragmatic accuracy (knowledge) and pragmatic speed (processing ability) function as two distinct and non-parallel components of pragmatic competence. Anderson's adaptive control of thought--rational (ACT-R) model, which emphasises the development of skill through repeated practice,…

The study aimed at investigating the effect of instruction through telegram groups on the learners' reading comprehension. Moreover, it investigated that whether there is any difference between two genders of the experimental groups in reading comprehension ability. For this purpose, 147 subjects were selected. To homogenize them, a standard…