Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Enhancing The Metacognitive Thinking Of Middle-Grade Multilingual Learners: A Design-Based Research Study Leveraging Dialogic Teaching, Renee R. Burns

Dissertations

This study explores how dialogic teaching can enhance metacognition and self-efficacy among middle school multilingual learners (MLs) who face challenges with the academic language demands of literacy tasks. Using a design-based research (DBR) methodology, specifically formative experiment, the Metacognitive Dialogic Teaching Protocol (MDTP) was implemented over seven iterative cycles. The research questions were as follows: How do dialogic interactions impact metacognition in middle-grade MLs? How does Metacognitive Dialogic Teaching affect comprehension development in these students? And how does it influence their self-efficacy? The participants included six middle-grade MLs engaged in a Tier 2 literacy intervention who initially exhibited fake reading …

Literacy And Equity: Exploring Teachers’ Lived Experiences Of Georgia Black Boys’ Difficulties With Reading Comprehension And Word Recognition, Roselle M. Caruth

Doctor of Education Program Dissertations

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data shows that since 1992, Black male students in Georgia’s fourth through eighth grades have consistently scored low on reading assessments (The Nation’s Report Card, 2022c). Low reading achievement contributes to a persistent underachievement gap for Black boys, leading to unfavorable academic outcomes such as difficulty in phonological processing, limited fluency and comprehension, slow development of linguistic skills, lower proficiency in basic reading, and higher rates of high school dropout (Russell & Drake Shiffler, 2019; Tatum, 2024a; Washington et al., 2019). The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore how teachers …

Reading Comprehension Interventions For Multilingual Learners With Disabilities: A Systematic Review, Sariya Shabnam, Jennifer E. Smith, Samiratu Bashiru

Journal of English Learner Education

Multilingual learners with disabilities (MLWDs) face substantial barriers to reading comprehension given the intersecting challenges of language acquisition and disability (Artzi et al., 2022; Frates et al., 2024). Students with disabilities often need explicit, strategy-based instruction with modeling, guided practice, and scaffolding (Frates et al., 2024; Wawire et al., 2024; Moura, 2024). When learners are also multilingual, interventions must be linguistically accessible and responsive to diverse cognitive profiles (Moura, 2024; Sarisahin, 2020). MLWDs comprise 15.8% of English learners in U.S. public schools (NCES, 2024), yet research on effective comprehension interventions remains limited; most studies treat multilingual learners or students with …

Improving Expository Reading Comprehension In College Students, Danielle M. De Lucia, George Noell

Psychology Faculty Publications

This study investigated the impact of the Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) method on reading comprehension and psychological well-being among college students, addressing a gap in research on expository reading comprehension at the post-secondary level. A total of 47 students from Introduction to Psychology courses participated in the study. Participants initially completed pre-test assessments, including a cloze test, the Wide Range Achievement Test, and scales for self-worth, depression, anxiety, and stress. Of these, 23 students underwent CSR intervention sessions, conducted over three weeks with bi-weekly 50-minute sessions using their course textbook. Post-intervention data from 44 students were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA. …

Implementing A Questioning Strategy In Teaching Reading Texts In Efl Classes: A Qualitative Study, Mohammed A. Alzahrani Dr.

The Qualitative Report

Developed by Beck and McKeown in the 1980s, Questioning the Author (QtA) emphasises active engagement with texts to construct meaning rather than passive information extraction. Despite numerous studies attempting to solve challenges in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, there is a lack of interpretive studies that investigate this issue from the actual field. This exploratory study investigated how EFL teachers' implementation of QtA and their perspectives toward the use of the QtA strategy in teaching reading comprehension in Saudi secondary schools through nine interviews and eighteen classroom observations, analysed thematically. Findings showed that effective QtA use requires …

Dialogic Instruction: Teachers Can Have Their Cake, And Eat It, Too, Rebecca L. Lee

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Dialogic instruction is a talk-intensive approach to learning and teaching that is student-centered and discussion-based, promoting collaboration and academically productive conversations. Recently, educators across the country have increased the amount of time spent preparing students for standardized assessments, which often reduces teaching and learning to test preparation. While this tension suggests that teachers must choose between good teaching or good test scores, dialogic instruction is a promising practice that can enhance students’ reading comprehension outcomes while centering student choice and valuing student voice. Research shows dialogic instruction is most effective when teachers a) co-create a conducive classroom climate, b) incorporate …

Reading Interventions In The Modern Era: Reconceptualizing The Utility Of Video Games, Senaida Mehmedovic

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Youth in the United States continue to have difficulty developing reading skills, with only 31% of fourth graders reading at a “proficient level” (NAEP Reading: National Average Scores, 2024). Youth struggling to develop reading skills often have reading anxiety (Chow et al., 2021; Martinez, 2019; Ramirez et al., 2019), which impacts their reading skill development even more (Mohammadpur & Ghafournia, 2015); the interwoven and cyclical relationship between reading anxiety and reading comprehension requires interventions to address these needs concurrently (Francis et al., 2019; Francis et al., 2021; Grills et al., 2012). The increased avoidance and paired aversion of reading-related tasks …

Sentence Detective: Investigating Sentence Structure To Support Reading Comprehension, Rachel Knecht

The Utah English Journal

Jacob was honest about his usual reading strategies. Like Jacob, readers with a history of reading difficulties may deal with challenging, long, or unfamiliar sentences by skipping or stumbling over them (Nomvete & Easterbrooks, 2020; Vaughn et al., 2022). But, Jacob offered another strategy— Sentence Detective. Over the past six weeks, Jacob had learned how to use Sentence Detective, a strategy for breaking sentences down into meaningful, more manageable parts. Although skipping or skimming may have been his go-to strategy for sentence-level comprehension, he now had another tool to try out.

It’S “A Good Day” To Make Inferences: Helping Emergent And Reluctant Readers, Amy Davis

Michigan Reading Journal

A skilled reader can understand and connect to relationships that are not explicitly stated in text. The process of making inferences can be divided into two categories: text and prior-knowledge-based. This paper offers examples of inference questions using the picture book, “It’s a Good Day” by Kevin Henkes, that teachers can use during shared book readings with emergent and reluctant readers.

Teaching Reading Comprehension To English Language Learners In A System With A Low Proportion Of Language Minority Students, Chutikarn Cotham

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

This study investigated reading instruction for English language learners (ELLs) by examining teachers' experiences and perspectives on teaching ELL students reading comprehension in an educational system with a low proportion of language minority students. The study addressed the prevalent concern of reading comprehension difficulties among ELLs and the need to bridge the gap between research-based strategies and practices in public schools. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four educators actively engaged in teaching ELLs at the upper elementary through high school levels. Thematic analysis of the data revealed several themes that were sorted into four main categories: training, curriculum, experience, and …

Can Vocabulary And Grammar Hold The Doorway For College Reading Success? The Case Of Arabic Learners Of English, Zainab A. Allaith

International Journal for Research in Education

Reading is an important skill for college success. This study investigated cognitive predictors of English reading comprehension success among college students whose first language is Arabic. Knowledge of vocabulary/grammar emerged as the strongest predictor of reading success, followed by silent reading fluency, and then decoding skill. However, metacognitive awareness of reading strategies did not statistically significantly contribute to the model. Findings suggest that Arabic speakers draw on their vocabulary and grammar knowledge when tackling an English reading comprehension task, skills that are language specific to L2. Implications include the recommendation for placing the development of college students’ language reservoir at …

Unpacking The Science Of Reading Research, Greta Rollo, Kellie Picker

Literacy and numeracy

The science of reading (SoR) is a term used for a body of evidence encompassing multi-disciplinary research from education, cognitive psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience. This evidence points to six key constructs that contribute to proficient reading: oral language, phonological awareness including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension. Research around these constructs provides researchers and teachers with an evidence base of the knowledge, skills and strategies involved in competent reading and describes how reading develops in both typical and atypical readers. This paper synthesises evidence reviews conducted by ACER researchers that unpack the science of reading. The aim of …

Fostering Novice L2 Pleasure Reading: The Role Of Comprehension, Text Difficulty, And Enjoyment, Victoria Rodrigo

Dimensions

This study reviews the effect of comprehension and perceived text difficulty in promoting reading enjoyment and interest to read more among novice learners practicing extensive and pleasure reading. Sixty-seven college students in their first semester of Spanish were asked to read a children-like story picture book in Spanish and were then given both a comprehension test and a brief perception questionnaire about how much they had enjoyed the story, how difficult they thought the reading had been, and whether they had interest to read more. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses show that (1) students’ perception on the level of difficulty …

The Use Of Graphic Organizers On The Reading Comprehension Of High School Students, Beckylee Ramos Lorenzo

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

This study seeks to identify correlation in the use of graphic organizers in reading comprehension of twelfth grade English language arts students. Specifically, this study seeks to determine if the use of graphic organizers in the teaching of reading has impacts on the reading comprehension of 12th grade English language arts students. The study intends to contribute to closing an information gap surrounding the effects of using instructional strategies such as graphic organizers in reading comprehension in a twelfth-grade English class. The research questions helped to guide this study in identifying descriptive statistics within PSAT reading comprehension scores during the …

The Journey To Becoming A Reader: Relationships Between Home Activities, Attitudes And Reading, Kylie Hillman

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Progress in International Reading Study – PIRLS for short – has been running since 2001, with Australia joining in 2011. Along with a well-researched measure of students’ reading comprehension, PIRLS includes a number of questionnaires for students, teachers, principals and parents/guardians that provide background and context for students’ performance in the reading assessment. This presentation will provide educators with an introduction to PIRLS and discuss what PIRLS can tell us about various home, attitudinal and behavioural factors that relate to Year 4 students’ performance in the PIRLS reading comprehension assessments.

We will discuss relationships between reading scores and factors …

The Influence Of Bolded Keywords In Online News Texts On Reading Speed And Comprehension For Heritage+ Learners Of Arabic, Marwah Khost Aljarkas

Theses and Dissertations

Learners and readers of Arabic, especially Heritage Language Learners, suffer more than ever from the lack of focus while reading online texts. This becomes a challenge that negatively impacts their overall learning process. This paper explores the influence of one salience feature - bolded keywords - over reading speed and comprehension amongst Heritage+ Learners of Arabic. Heritage+ refers to Arabs living in the Arab world, but who have minimum exposure to the language. Thirty-two students, who are Heritage+ Learners of Arabic, currently studying at the American University in Cairo and belong to Generation Z (18-25 years), participated in the study. …

Writing And Reading Connections: Giving Value To Both Sides Of The Same Literacy Coin, Zoi A. Traga Philippakos, Penelope Wiese, Adalea Davis

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

The purpose of this article is to comment on ways that writing-reading connections can take place enhancing reading comprehension and composition. Drawing from a genre-based instructional approach, examples are provided to explain such connections in the process of (a) a rhetorical analysis conducted on writing prompts and prior to reading, (b) examination of writing purposes and genres for writing and reading, (c) read alouds for retelling and monitoring meaning making, and (d) of critical reading for reviewing purposes and determination of clarity of written ideas. The article concludes with guidelines for classroom teachers and recommendations for the implementation of the …

Understanding The Relationships Between Social-Emotional Competency, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, And Reading Achievement In Adolescent Students, David Phillips

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

The improvement of social-emotional factors is thought to help increase students’ achievement by 11% (Durlak et al., 2011). This current study is a descriptive study set in a rural setting, and it included 101 seventh and eighth-grade students. The study explored the relationship between social-emotional competency, reading ability, and reading achievement in adolescent students. Correlation results showed statistically positive relationships between reading measures and social-emotional measures except for social awareness and grit. Regression results revealed that social-emotional competencies explained from 7% to 36% of the variance in adolescent reading. Social-emotional competencies and reading ability measures together explained 51% to 53% …

Comprehension, Diagram Analysis, Integration, And Interest: A Cross-Sectional Analysis, Courtney Hattan, Eunseo Lee, Alexandra List

Faculty Publications - College of Education

The current study examines a multidimensional set of outcome variables to understand whether different pre-reading scaffolds influence students’ text comprehension, diagram analysis, text integration, and interest; and investigates these constructs cross-sectionally to identify any progression as students move across grades. One-hundred fifty-six 3rd through 6th grade students enrolled in a public laboratory school were randomly assigned to one of three pre-reading conditions intended to activate or build students’ topic knowledge. Students completed a series of before, during, and after reading activities while engaging with grade appropriate texts about the topics of ecosystems and living things. Results indicate that there were …

Reading On The Ropes: A Pilot Study Of An Accelerated Remediation Program With Alternative High School Students, Joanne V. Coggins, Laura C. Briggs

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

High school students must read to learn curriculum, yet few interventions are proven to substantially help close literacy gaps for older students with reading deficits. Students with large literacy deficits particularly benefit from explicit, systematic instruction of interventions emphasizing the structure of language (i.e., phonology, orthography, syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics), aspects of cognition (i.e., problem solving, attention, reasoning, and inferencing), and organization of spoken and written language.

A 14-week pilot study of Readable English, a reading intervention using these structured literacy elements, provided embedded interactive orthography to scaffold online grade level content for students at two alternative high schools ( …

Assessing Reading: How Assessment Can Be Used To Target Teaching And Enhance Understanding Of Reading Comprehension, Sandra Knowles

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The skills demonstrated by a proficient reader are not easy to untangle. Current research acknowledges that reading comprehension is a highly complex area of ability, one that needs to be understood as the coordination of several integrated processes. Using example test questions and data, this presentation explores how assessment can help us make sense of reading comprehension in a way that curricula and commonly used teaching strategies cannot. Assessment is evidence that informs us about the skills involved in the reading process, how they relate to each other, and how they develop in complexity. When assessment is understood in this …

Computer-Aided Response-To-Intervention For Reading Comprehension Based On Recommender System, Ming-Chi Liu, Wei-Yang Lin, Chia-Ling Tsai

Publications and Research

In 2019, New York State Education Department announced 54.6% of all students in grades 3 to 8 not meeting the standard of reading proficiency. Motivated by the need for a more efficient intervention model, we propose a recommender system to leverage the technology in machine learning to recommend suitable reading materials for effective intervention. The recommendation is based on the student's prior reading comprehension assessments and also assessments of other students at the same grade level using collaborative filtering. No other prior academic or demographic information of students is available. Two main challenges are lack of explicit ratings of reading …

Implementation Of Second Chance Reading, Peyton Paddock

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

Students will struggle with reading, and it is harder on them when they have a reading disability. Providing support to these students can be critical in developing their reading comprehension and fluency skills. Second Chance Reading (SCR) is a great method of helping students receive the supports needed. Students with disabilities receive supports and accommodations. However, this does not mean that what they are receiving is what they need to be successful. A student reading faster but struggling to understand is just as bothersome as a student reading slower and struggling to understand. SCR helps students break down their reading …

Effective Reading Practices For Inclusive Classrooms, Andrew Block

Graduate Teacher Education

This paper examined research on what are best practices for teaching reading comprehension to students in an inclusive classroom. This topic is explored through research findings from multiple quantitative and qualitative studies which examined the effectiveness of structured reading instruction, explicitly taught reading strategies, student autonomy, and discussion and collaboration as best practices for improving reading comprehension skills. While research showed a variety of effective practices and strategies to increase reading comprehension among all students, the research also suggested the need for content area teachers to receive on-going professional development to consistently implement evidence-based practices throughout the course of the …

Using Co-Teaching In Developing Reading Skills Among Female Students With Learning Disabilities And Their Regular Peers, Maha Hamad Alsheeha Phd

International Journal for Research in Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of using co- teaching on developing reading skills for students with learning disabilities and their regular peers on a sample of fourth grade students at primary school in Riyadh. The subjects for this study were (74) female students distributed into two groups (control and experimental), each group consisting of (30) regular students and (7) students with learning disability. A pre and post-test was applied to both groups to measure their achievement in the reading skills: reading accuracy, speed and comprehension. The two groups were taught (40) lessons, each session lasting …

The Study Of Morphological Awareness For English Learners, Jane Beeninga

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

English Learner (EL) students in American schools are becoming increasingly common, but there does not seem to be enough support for these students. This is causing EL students to fall behind in content areas such as reading (Richards-Tutor et al., 2016). The purpose of this study was to investigate what barriers are keeping EL students from succeeding in reading. After identifying a need for vocabulary instruction, the researcher will be conducting a morphological awareness intervention to improve EL students’ ability to figure out unknown words. Morphological awareness is the understanding of a word’s smaller units such as prefixes, suffixes, and …

Today A Reader, Tomorrow A Leader: How Reading Comprehension Plays A Role In Academics Among Low-Income Students, Marissa Sandra Francisca Torrez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

For this Capstone Project, the researcher investigates how teachers and low-income families view the resources needed for students to increase their reading comprehension and what they thought could be done to improve access to those resources. Interviews included a fieldworker who has a child enrolled in a middle school, a middle school Community Liaison who is very familiar and close to low-income families and the issues they face with education. Additionally, three middle school students completed a survey on reading comprehension. Based on an analysis of the interviews, surveys and the relevant research literature, the researcher used what they had …

The Effects Of Watching Text-Relevant Video Segments On Reading Comprehension Of Culturally Unfamiliar Texts With Adult English Language Learners Supported By The Schematic Information-Processing (Sip) Model Of Reading Comprehension, Amirreza Karami

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods sequential explanatory study was to investigate the effects of watching text-relevant video segments on reading comprehension of a culturally unfamiliar text when technical words are present or absent. Therefore, 44 adult English Language Learners (ELLs) with higher-intermediate to advanced English language proficiency levels from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) School of Languages located in the Dominican Republic were chosen and randomly assigned to two different groups: control vs. experimental.

First, the researcher compared two different types of reading instruction—traditional text-based vs. video-based reading instruction supported by the Schematic Information-Processing (SIP) model of reading …

The Predictive Role Of Grapho-Morphological Knowledge In Reading Comprehension For Beginning-Level L2 Chinese Learners, Tianxu Chen, Sihui Ke, Keiko Koda

Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Publications

Reading comprehension entails a set of distinct, yet interdependent cognitive, linguistic, and nonlinguistic processes. Previous second language (L2) Chinese studies have identified significant and positive impacts of grapho-morphological knowledge at the character and subcharacter (radical) levels on passage reading comprehension; however, little is known regarding how early L2 grapho-morphological knowledge at the character and radical levels jointly predict later L2 reading comprehension. This study aimed to fill this gap. One hundred and five beginning-level L2 Chinese collegiate learners were recruited, and completed two character-related and two radical-related tasks in Week 8, as well as one reading comprehension tasks in Week …

Using Physical Activity To Improve Reading Comprehension, Jensen Flanigan

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

Student reading proficiency lags grade-level expectations in the majority of the United States. Much research has demonstrated the moderating impact of student motivation on reading scores. The purpose of this action research was to study the effects of physical activity on reading motivation and reading comprehension, with a special focus on readers at risk for reading deficiencies as identified by FAST testing. The research was carried out on eighteen third grade students in rural Iowa, seven of whom were at risk for reading deficiency. The use of physical activity had a positive effect on both reading motivation and reading comprehension, …