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This study examined the potential of eye-tracking as a tool for assessing reading comprehension. We administered three widely used reading comprehension tests with varying task demands to 79 typical adult readers while monitoring their eye movements. In the "York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension" (YARC), participants were given passages of text to read silently, followed by comprehension questions. In the "Gray Oral Reading Test" (GORT-5), participants were given passages of text to read aloud, followed by comprehension questions. In the sentence comprehension subtest of the "Wide Range Achievement Test" (WRAT-4), participants were asked to provide a missing word in sentences that they read silently (i.e., a cloze task). Linear models predicting comprehension scores from eye-tracking measures yielded different results for the three tests. Eye-tracking measures explained significantly more variance than reading-speed data for the YARC (four times better), GORT (three times better), and the WRAT (1.3 time better). Importantly, there was no common strong predictor for all three tests. These results support growing recognition that reading comprehension tests do not measure the same cognitive processes, and that participants adapt their reading strategies to the tests' varying task demands. This study also suggests that eye-tracking may provide a useful alternative for measuring reading comprehension.

The purpose of this study was to describe how experienced emergent writing teachers supported 4-year-olds in writing their own messages during the learning centers period of the preschool day. Data were drawn from two, year-long qualitative studies of early writing instruction. Adult participants were three researcher-teachers who worked in publicly funded prekindergarten classrooms 1 or 2 days per week across a school year. A sample of six open-ended, researcher-child writing events were selected and microanalyzed using the constant/comparative method and multimodal interaction analysis. Results showed that more than a fourth of adult message units were produced in conversations occurring "off the page" aimed at developing a shared, meaningful topic for writing. Drawing was used as a platform for developing ideas and as a launch for page-based composing. Adults wrote their own texts alongside children as a means of engaging children as co-authors and providing demonstrations of adult writing. Adults frequently invited children to write messages related to their play and activity, and then asked them to read their writing. They provided direct support for writing processes. Support for children's phonetic spelling was most frequent, followed by support for writing concepts. Handwriting support was provided infrequently. Adults praised all attempts at writing, regardless of the conventionality of the product. Findings provide an empirical description of how adults can support early writing in the context of informal learning center events.

Research has indicated that reading aloud to young students can enhance their foundational reading skills and their reading motivation, but such research has been lacking in African contexts. In this study, we assessed the efficacy of story read-aloud lessons in improving students' foundational reading skills in Nigeria. The experiment took place in a cluster randomized trial of 199 schools in Northern Nigeria. In treatment schools, second-grade teachers conducted weekly read-aloud lessons as an addition to the core learning curriculum. In control schools, second-grade teachers implemented only the core curriculum, without weekly read-aloud lessons. We found that story read-alouds led to positive effects on listening comprehension, letter sound recognition, nonword decoding, and reading fluency, with effect sizes between 0.17 and 0.33 standard deviations. These outcomes suggest that enhanced student motivation from read-alouds may enhance text-based skills. To identify the effects of increased teacher experience on read-aloud effectiveness, we employed a two-period difference-in-differences approach. We found that increased teacher experience explained between 26% and 51% of the overall read-aloud effect, depending on the literacy subskill. We also found that the read-aloud effects coupled with increased teacher experience had an equalizing effect on the reading outcomes of students from divergent home literacy environments.

Research has widely demonstrated the contribution of word reading, listening comprehension skills, and oral reading fluency to reading comprehension performance. However, the existence of reciprocal relations among these skills has been investigated less frequently. The authors examined the directionality of the relations among reading comprehension, listening comprehension, word reading, and oral reading fluency in Portuguese elementary school students from second to fourth grade by using a longitudinal cross-lagged design. The sample was composed of 261 students assessed at the end of grades 2, 3, and 4. The results indicated that there is a reciprocal relation between listening comprehension and reading comprehension in every grade and that oral reading fluency and reading comprehension have a reciprocal relation only in the initial years of schooling, similar to the observed relation between oral reading fluency and word reading. The results are discussed considering their potential impact and the limitations of the study.

In this secondary analysis study, the authors explored the relations between reading comprehension and oral reading performance in fourth-grade students, using a data set from the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) special study of oral reading. The data set consisted of 1,713 students randomly selected from the 140,000 fourth graders who participated in the 2002 main NAEP reading assessment. Oral reading was measured by word-reading accuracy, rate, and prosody. The authors investigated how these variables related to NAEP comprehension across the ability distribution, with a focus on students with low comprehension scores. The results add to the literature in several ways. First, indicators of oral reading fluency continue to explain variation in reading comprehension, even when students had been given multiple opportunities to familiarize themselves with the passage that they read aloud. Second, word-reading accuracy and reading rate independently explained comprehension scores. Third, the authors observed qualitatively different profiles of fourth-grade readers with low comprehension scores. Nearly all students with reading rates lower than one standard deviation below the mean also had problems with word recognition, as evidenced by the relatively higher number of word-reading errors and low prosody ratings. The authors interpret these findings in light of the lexical quality hypothesis and the verbal efficiency theory, which emphasize the importance of word-level accuracy and automaticity to reading comprehension.

This study investigated an adaptation of the Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) measure of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills into a European context for the Norwegian language, which has a more transparent orthography than English. Second-order latent growth curve modeling was used to examine the longitudinal measurement invariance of the ORF measure, the growth in oral reading fluency within and across grades 2-5, the relative stability of the ORF measure, and the relationship between the ORF measure and high-stakes national tests of reading proficiency. Results showed that the ORF passages measured the same underlying construct, but some passages stood out regarding the invariance pattern. The oral reading fluency growth curve models demonstrated a linear growth in grades 2 and 3 and a nonlinear growth in grades 4 and 5. Initial individual differences varied more than growth rates, which for all were positive but largest in grades 3 and 4. High relative stability in the ORF measure was found across grades. The concurrent and predictive relations of the ORF measure on the Norwegian national reading tests were moderate to strong (range = 0.44-0.75). Findings indicated that the ORF is a reliable and valid measure of reading in Norwegian grades 2-5 and easy and fast to administer. The ORF measure might contribute to early identification of students at risk for reading difficulties in an orthography more transparent than English. Implications for school practice and future research are discussed.

The effects of a word identification game aimed at enhancing decoding efficiency in poor readers were tested. Following a pretest-posttest-retention design with a waiting control group, 62 poor-reading Dutch second graders received a five-hour tablet intervention across a period of five weeks. During the intervention, participants practiced reading words and pseudowords while doing semantic categorization and lexical decision exercises in a gaming context. Prior to, directly after, and five weeks following the intervention, word-decoding efficiency was assessed using a standardized read-aloud test consisting of six lists of untrained words and pseudowords with three levels of difficulty: consonant-vowel-consonant items, consonant cluster items, and disyllabic items. Significant increases as a result of the brief gaming intervention were found for decoding efficiency on all six word lists. The game, which included repetition, immediate corrective feedback, and a semantics task, elicited transfer and retention effects.

This article highlights one mother-son case study that was part of a larger study, Revaluing Readers and Families (Kabuto, [Kabuto, B., 2009], [Kabuto, B., 2015]). Here the author focuses on how the mother, Terry, interpreted her 7-year-old son Peter's oral reading performances and how her interpretation led her to construct a label around a reading disability. Study data include interviews, observations of parent-child interactions, oral readings and retellings, and family retrospective miscue analysis. Data were analyzed using miscue analysis procedures to examine reading behaviors and also discourse analysis to study how language mediated the construction of and defended the culture of a reading disability within the family. Framed by a sociocultural-historical theoretical foundation, the findings illustrate how Terry interpreted Peter's reading ability within a transgenerational space, which is a convergence zone so the past, present, and future come together to create a new space, or a living cultural space, that transcends the immediate moment. Results and findings from this mother-son case study question the nature and root of Peter's struggles with reading, moving it from being localized in the person to being a part of a social matrix defining a culture for the family. The author concludes by revisiting the concept of reading ability and addressing the implications of this research.

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text-reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity): how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word-reading fluency, reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word-reading fluency and reading comprehension. The study examined (a) developmentally changing relations among word-reading fluency, listening comprehension, text-reading fluency, and reading comprehension; (b) the relation of reading comprehension to text-reading fluency; (c) unique emergent literacy predictors (i.e., phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, morphological awareness, letter name knowledge, vocabulary) of text-reading fluency versus word-reading fluency; and (d) unique language and cognitive predictors (e.g., vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, theory of mind) of text-reading fluency versus reading comprehension. These questions were addressed using longitudinal data (two timepoints; mean age = 5 years 2 months and 6 years 1 month, respectively) from young Korean-speaking children (N = 143). Results showed that listening comprehension was related to text-reading fluency at time 2 but not at time 1. At both times, text-reading fluency was related to reading comprehension, and reading comprehension was related to text-reading fluency over and above word-reading fluency and listening comprehension. Orthographic awareness was related to text-reading fluency over and above other emergent literacy skills and word-reading fluency. Vocabulary and grammatical knowledge were independently related to text-reading fluency and reading comprehension, whereas theory of mind was related to reading comprehension but not text-reading fluency. These results reveal the developmental nature of relations and mechanisms of text-reading fluency in reading development.

This study evaluated the validity of a new scale for assessing children's reading fluency skill called the Comprehensive Oral Reading Fluency Scale (CORFS). The CORFS consists of two subscales that capture key elements of the Kuhn, Schwanenflugel, and Meisinger (2010) definition of reading fluency: reading expression, reading rate, and accuracy. In study 1, the reading expression subscale was developed by examining spectrographically measured prosodic differences in the oral readings of children with varying fluency skill. Three experts independently rated the oral readings of 59 second-grade children using the CORFS. Intraclass correlations among raters were strong for both reading expression, and reading rate and accuracy. Expression ratings correlated with all but one spectrographic indicator of reading prosody and highly with standardized assessments of reading fluency and comprehension. In study 2, the structure of the scale was replicated using spectrographic measures of the oral readings of 60 third-grade children reading two new texts. Two experts independently rated these oral readings using a final version of the scale. Results were comparable to those of study 1. Together, these results support the validity of the CORFS as an assessment of reading fluency. (Contains 1 figure and 13 tables.)

This study investigated multiple models for assessing oral reading fluency, including 1-minute oral reading measures that produce scores reported as words correct per minute (wcpm). We compared a measure of wcpm with measures of the individual and combined indicators of oral reading fluency (rate, accuracy, prosody, and comprehension) to examine construct, criterion, and consequential validity. Oral reading data and standardized comprehension test scores were analyzed for students in grades 2, 4, and 6. Our results indicate that assessments designed to include multiple indicators of oral reading fluency provided a finer-grained understanding of oral reading fluency and fluency assessment, and a stronger predictor of general comprehension. Comparisons across grade levels also revealed developmental differences in the relation between oral reading fluency and comprehension, and the relative contributions of oral fluency indicators to comprehension. When commonly used benchmarks were applied to wcpm scores to identify students at risk of reading difficulty, both false positives and false negatives were found. This study raises issues regarding the alignment of oral reading fluency definitions and assessment, and the widespread use of wcpm measures and benchmarks to identify students at risk of reading difficulty and to plan instruction. (Contains 4 figures and 7 tables.)

The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of text difficulty on the oral reading prosody of young children. Fluency in reading is ideally determined by measuring rate, accuracy, and prosodic qualities in the oral reading of children. Spectrographic measurements of four prosodic variables--sentence-final F[subscript 0] change, intonation contour, intrasentential pausing, and ungrammatical pausing--were carried out on the oral readings of second-grade students (N = 90) of an easy and a difficult text. Standardized measures of reading fluency (i.e., measuring only rate and accuracy) and reading comprehension were also given. Text difficulty had an impact on children's oral reading on three of the four prosody variables, and fluent children read more expressively than less fluent children. Prosody measured from the more difficult text was found to be more closely related to other aspects of fluency than prosody measured from the easy text. Additionally, prosody measured from the difficult text served as an independent predictor of comprehension skills once rate and accuracy were controlled for, whereas prosody from the easy text did not. It is proposed that good reading prosody is used by children to assist in comprehending the more difficult text. (Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)

The relation between Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and reading comprehension at the end of first grade and second grade was examined in a sample of 1,518 first-grade students from a large urban school district. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to determine optimal DIBELS cut scores for predicting satisfactory reading comprehension. A measure of reading rate and accuracy, a subtest that the DIBELS assessment refers to as Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), was a better predictor of comprehension than the remaining subtests, including a retell fluency task designed to measure comprehension. Also, use of other subtests in combination with ORF did not substantially improve predictive power beyond that provided by ORF alone. Vocabulary was an important factor in the relation between ORF scores and comprehension. Students with satisfactory ORF scores but poor comprehension had lower vocabulary scores than students with satisfactory ORF scores and satisfactory comprehension. (Contains 6 tables.)

This theoretical article examines reading processes using chaos theory as an analogy. Three principles of chaos theory are identified and discussed, then related to reading processes as revealed through eye movement research. Used as an analogy, the chaos theory principle of sensitive dependence contributes to understanding the difficulty in predicting the nature of a reader's eye movement regressions, the principle of self-similarity is realized in the statistical similarity of a reader's eye movements at different levels of text, and the principle of non-linearity is demonstrated through the intersection of eye movements and oral reading miscue analysis. When related to chaos theory in this way, reading can be described as a self-similar, nonlinear dynamical system sensitively dependent on reader and text characteristics throughout the reading process. Implications of viewing reading processes through a chaos theory perspective are discussed.

Examines the contribution of orthographic processing skills to individual differences on five types of reading measures for third grade children. Finds that orthographic skills contributed significantly to each type of reading. Finds that significant variation still remains after print exposure is partialed out of the regression. (RS)

Reading rates and comprehension measures that probed recognition of various levels of text structure were collected for passages read orally and silently by 16 college students. Results showed that memory traces of text microstructure created in oral reading were accessed faster during memory-based comprehension tasks than traces established by faster processes that occurred during silent reading. (HOD)

Children in first, second, and third grades were subjects in a study that investigated how well they drew inferences after reading their own dictated stories, peer-dictated stories, and adult-written stories. Results showed they inferred better if they dictated the story themselves or if they were accurate decoders. (HOD)

To determine which of four modes of reading (oral reading to an audience, oral reading to oneself, silent reading, silent reading while listening) best facilitated reading comprehension, 48 subjects read a passage in each of the modes and answered post comprehension questions. Results supported equivalent comprehension following silent and oral reading to oneself. (HOD)

Describes two studies conducted to evaluate a comprehensive cooperative learning approach to elementary reading and writing instruction: Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC). Found significant effects in favor of the CIRC students on standardized measures of reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, language expression, oral reading, and spelling. (SKC)

Reports two experiments analyzing the effects of different types of word misidentification on children's understanding of connected discourse. Results vary depending upon the way comprehension is assessed. (AA)

Explores reader and text effects on the production of mental imagery during and after reading a poem, a story, and two expository texts. Finds that imagery occurs spontaneously during and after reading all texts and that the production of imagery is affected by both reader and text. (RS)

Forty-six fourth-grade boys were tested to determine to what extent their substitution miscues affected their silent reading comprehension ability and their retelling ability following oral reading. It was found that, while substitution miscues generally detracted from comprehension and retelling, not all substitutions detracted equally. (MKM)

Describes the construction of a criterion-referenced test designed to test the ability of beginning readers to pronounce CVC letter combinations. (MKM)

Presents evidence from oral reading miscue research to support a psycholinguistic view of why omissions take place and how they reflect the reading process. Classifies word level omissions as deliberate and nondeliberate. (MKM)

An extensive case history of instructional environment and acquisition of reading skills by 50 first-grade students in ten classrooms indicates that the rate at which students mastered decoding depended on classroom instruction with direct instruction appearing most profitable for children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. (MKM)

Suggests that oral and silent sentence reading represent a similar cognitive process. Reports that poor readers, in particular, decrease processing time on difficult words in silent as compared to oral reading. (AEA)

Concludes that methodological problems must be overcome and certain critical assumptions validated before the results from oral reading error analysis can be used confidently. (AEA)

Discusses a study in which learning disabled or educationally handicapped middle school students received a daily treatment of 20 minutes of phonics instruction and demonstrated gains on both the Wide Range Achievement Test and the Gray Oral Reading Test. (AEA)

Learning from expository texts demands the processing of metatextual cues (rhetorical devices) and the activating of reading strategies. The main objective of this study was to examine whether profiting from written metatextual cues to launch reading strategies needs higher level of rhetorical competence than profiting from oral cues. Specifically, this study addresses two questions: (1) Is there a gap between the sensitivity to oral versus written metatextual cues depending on the student's reading skill level? (2) Do the reader's rhetorical competence, general reading comprehension, and decoding levels interact with the processing of each type of metatextual cue? Three hundred sixty‐seven students (11–13 years old) summarized an expository text after reading it under one of the following four conditions: with written cues, with oral cues, with both cues combined, or with no cues. The less skilled readers who received oral or combined cues provided better summaries (they selected and organized the main ideas better) than the less skilled readers who received written cues or no cues. However, the performance of the more skilled readers was equal under the conditions with written cues, oral cues, and combined cues; these three groups outperformed the readers from the no‐cues condition group. A multicategorical moderator analysis showed that following written cues demanded higher levels of general comprehension and rhetorical competence than following oral and combined cues. These data confirm that rhetorical competence is a specific capability for processing, especially written metatextual cues, and for overcoming the gap between the sensitivity to oral versus written cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading science has reached consensus that background knowledge is essential for reading comprehension. What remains an open question for the science of reading, however, is how and when this background knowledge ought to be developed. Teachers often include activities meant to activate background knowledge immediately prior to read‐alouds. However, these activities also often provide completely new knowledge, the efficacy of which has not been well studied. The goal of the current study was to examine differences in narrative comprehension when background knowledge is activated before reading (i.e., students are reminded of things they already know) versus provided before reading (i.e., students are informed of new information). To that end, 92 participants were tested on familiar information (i.e., activated knowledge), taught novel but relevant information (i.e., provided knowledge), or taught novel but irrelevant information (i.e., neither activated nor provided knowledge) prior to reading a story. Regression analyses showed that whereas students showed basic comprehension no matter when they learned the information, attention and more advanced comprehension skills were more successful when students already knew about a topic and merely had their knowledge activated. This suggests that common prereading activities may not be successful for students who are unfamiliar with the topic. Reading science must continue to explore how to develop this crucial background knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the relationship between the reading ability and science achievement of students in grades 5, 8, and 9. Reading ability was assessed with four measures: word recognition, vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, and comprehension (23% of all passages were on science topics). Science achievement was assessed with state criterion-referenced measures. Both the reading and the science measures included inference items. Using multiple-group structural equation modeling, a general factor of reading ability (composed of the two specific factors of discourse comprehension and word comprehension) was found to account for 70% of the variance in grades 5 and 8 science performance and 64% of the variance in grade 9 science performance. Quantile regressions revealed that the relationship between reading and science was stable across ability levels at grade 5 and mostly stable at grade 8, with a slightly stronger relation for eighth graders at low levels of science ability. At grade 9, lower reading ability was more strongly associated with lower science performance, which was statistically significantly different from the comparatively weaker associations at higher ends. Taken together, results suggest that literacy is critical to learning and demonstrating knowledge of science concepts, regardless of ability level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text-reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity): how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word-reading fluency, reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word-reading fluency and reading comprehension. The study examined (a) developmentally changing relations among word-reading fluency, listening comprehension, text-reading fluency, and reading comprehension; (b) the relation of reading comprehension to text-reading fluency; (c) unique emergent literacy predictors (i.e., phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, morphological awareness, letter name knowledge, vocabulary) of text-reading fluency versus word-reading fluency; and (d) unique language and cognitive predictors (e.g., vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, theory of mind) of text-reading fluency versus reading comprehension. These questions were addressed using longitudinal data (two timepoints; mean age = 5 years 2 months and 6 years 1 month, respectively) from young Korean-speaking children ( N = 143). Results showed that listening comprehension was related to text-reading fluency at time 2 but not at time 1. At both times, text-reading fluency was related to reading comprehension, and reading comprehension was related to text-reading fluency over and above word-reading fluency and listening comprehension. Orthographic awareness was related to text-reading fluency over and above other emergent literacy skills and word-reading fluency. Vocabulary and grammatical knowledge were independently related to text-reading fluency and reading comprehension, whereas theory of mind was related to reading comprehension but not text-reading fluency. These results reveal the developmental nature of relations and mechanisms of text-reading fluency in reading development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, 81 fifth-grade and 82 eighth-grade children completed a continuous lexical decision priming task that examined their reading times for evidence of sensitivity to the morphological structure of words during reading. A lexical decision task measured students' response times to target words preceded by a prime (which children also read and responded to) that was morphologically related, semantically related, orthographically similar, or unrelated. Analyses of variance indicated that children read target words more quickly and accurately following words that were morphologically related, compared with words that had only semantic or orthographic overlap with targets, with no differences in priming effects between readers of high and average skill. Although differential sensitivity to morphological structure during reading was not associated with reading skill, a secondary regression analysis indicated that children's performance on a measure of explicit morphological production was a significant unique predictor of both word identification and reading comprehension. Although evidence of children's sensitivity to morphological structure during reading does not necessarily prove that morphological processes support childrens decoding or comprehension of unfamiliar words encountered in text, documentation of such sensitivity during actual word reading is an important step in the test of such an hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the development of reading prosody and its impact on later reading skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured for 92 children at the end of grades 1 and 2 and oral reading fluency and reading comprehension assessments at the end of the third-grade school year. Tests were carried out to determine (a) the manner in which the key features of oral reading prosody unfold with development and (b) the extent to which the development of reading prosody is predictive of later oral reading fluency and comprehension outcomes beyond word reading skills alone. Path model tests found a relationship between the presence of fewer pausal intrusions during oral reading in first grade and subsequent development of an adult-like intonation contour in second grade. Outcome model tests indicated that the intonation contour was a significant predictor of later fluency once word reading skills were taken into account. Decreases in the number of pausal intrusions between the first and second grades and early acquisition of an adult-like intonation contour predicted better comprehension later. Thus, prosodic oral reading might signal that children have achieved fluency and are more capable of understanding what they read. Results of this study support the inclusion of prosody in formal definitions of oral reading fluency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Reading Research Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Reading Research Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Reading Research Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)