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Digital learning tools have become increasingly popular worldwide as they enhance the teaching and learning process. It has the potential to improve the educational experience and awareness of children both within the host country and internationally. Additionally, it can contribute to personal growth, promote fair competition, increase productivity, and foster a lifelong love of learning. The main aim of this study was to examine how digital education can enhance the learning of young children from both the host country and international backgrounds. The study sample consisted of 53 female childhood education teachers, including 23 national and 30 international teachers from the Emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. The participants were selected using the available sampling method. To achieve the study's goal, a carefully crafted, semi-structured interview was created, considering its validity and reliability. The study revealed numerous consequences linked to learning through digital tools, which enhance the quality of education for both local and international children in the host country. The results highlighted the importance of cognitive learning through digital platforms as well as the development of emotional aspects. The results of this study showed that students achieved a wide range of learning outcomes in areas such as language, mathematics, science, and social skills. In addition, the findings provide significant evidence of the impact of digital learning tools on enhancing the motivation of host country nationals and international students to learn and improving their perception of independent reading. Moreover, positive attitudes toward learning environments emerged as a side effect. In conclusion, the study presents a set of relevant recommendations.

As from the acquisition of the skill in the language acquisition and learning process, until the competent reader level is reached and afterwards, the reading skill and action should be constantly improved. For this reason, reading should be in the habit of language learners. Accordingly, in this study, it was aimed to determine the Turkish book reading habits of students studying Turkish in Kyrgyzstan. In the study, phenomenology (phenomenology), one of the qualitative research designs, was used as it was aimed to reveal the existing situation regarding the determination of the Turkish book reading habits of the students studying Turkish in Kyrgyzstan. The working group of the research consists of 132 Kyrgyz students studying at the Kyrgyzstan Bishkek Turkey Turkish Education and Training Center (TTÖMER). Convenient (easily accessible) sampling method was used to determine the working group. In the collection of data in the research, the opinions of the Kyrgyz students on Turkish reading habits were collected with a semi-structured interview form. The scale used in the research was presented to the students as a questionnaire form online by the researchers. The data collection process was carried out on a voluntary basis and the students were informed about the purpose of the study. As a result, it has been determined that Kyrgyz students who learn Turkey Turkish as a foreign language read books in Turkish for travel and education, the books they read increase their Turkish vocabulary, accelerate their language learning, and improve their speaking and writing in the target language.

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 explores the opinion of teachers on the media deficits they perceive in their students. The main research technique used in this study was a descriptive, cross-sectional survey of 1,651 ESO students from all over Spain with a confidence level of <95% and a ±3% sampling error. In order to delve deeper into some of the main aspects pointed out by students, 77 in-depth interviews were conducted with teachers from all over Spain. The main results highlight that high school students are mainly informed through social networks, television, and their family or friendship groups; that they have difficulties in discriminating between information and opinion; and that, although they consider themselves capable of differentiating between news and hoaxes, more than half are unable to distinguish between fake and real news. According to the teachers in some of these schools, media consumption among students is non-critical, fuelled by the compulsive consumption of audiovisual and digital media.

This bibliometric study analyzed the research topic structure of the "Reading in a Foreign Language" ("RFL") journal in the past two decades. Using two well recognized bibliometric approaches, namely, the keyword co-occurrence analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis, the study examined author keywords and their co-occurrence of 184 research articles from 2002 to 2020. Results revealed that (1) the journal covered a wide range of reading research topics, and its most frequently researched topics were extensive reading, reading fluency, vocabulary learning, reading of foreign languages other than English, etc; (2) frequently researched topics were clustered into eight groups, including development of reading fluency, learner factors, vocabulary, etc.; and (3) the network of research topics centered around six large nodes (i.e., standardized keywords), namely extensive reading, reading fluency, vocabulary learning, reader characteristics, reading instructions, and reading comprehension. The findings might help readers and potential contributors familiarize with the research topic structure of the "RFL" journal. This study has important pedagogical implications.

Children's reading for pleasure is associated with significant academic and personal benefits and is widely recognised as an effective way to leverage social change, yet in schools this is not fully capitalised upon. The authors connect extant research in this area to the seminal concepts of Funds of Knowledge and Funds of Identity to advance the notion of Funds of Courage and unify literature on dark Funds of Identity and subjective sense, in order to put forward a volitional reading agenda that resonates with the urgent need to innovate reading curricula. The authors argue that the twin psychological pillars of Funds of Courage -- resilience and vulnerability -- can enable teachers to progress children's volitional reading practices more reciprocally and thus play a role in advancing social justice. In drawing on examples from recent work with both emergent and established readers, primarily focused on early years and early primary education in England, they seek to widen conceptual and practical understanding in this area.

This study examines the negative effects of social media addiction on the reading habits of second language learners at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. It is anchored on two theories: the Uses and Gratification theory and the Time Displacement theory. These theories were exploited in assessing the effects of addiction to the use of social media on the reading habits of second-language users. The quantitative method for data collection and analysis was adopted. A questionnaire was administered to 525 respondents to ascertain the level of their addiction to social media and reading habits. The study shows that students are seriously addicted to social media, spending 3-4 hours on non-academic matters, which affects their reading habits seriously. Based on the above discoveries, it is recommended that compulsory orientations should be organised on when, how, and what social media should be used for.

Access to books and a rich language environment at home are important for children's language development. In this study we explored self-reported reading practices in families in Norway (N = 1001) to gain insight into the reading habits parents have with their young children, and the factors that best explain book reading in Norwegian homes. By investigating relationships between how many books parents reported reading with their child last week, demographic factors, and orientational variables, we found that book reading is better explained by orientational factors -- such as children's interest in books and having reading routines in the home -- than by demographic factors (such as parents' educational level). The proportion of parents reporting reading no books, or only one book with their child in the last week was unexpectedly large (33%). The implication of these findings for the culture of reading in Norwegian homes is discussed.

This study describes Indonesian secondary school EFL teachers' and students' profiles of reading engagement, which comprises behavioral, affective, cognitive, and social dimensions. The researchers employed a survey design involving 70 teachers and 828 students of secondary schools in 50 regions in Java, Sumatra, and the Borneo Islands. The instrument used was a teacher questionnaire and a student questionnaire which contained 16 close-ended questions and 7 open-ended questions. The data from close-ended responses were tabulated and presented in percentages, while the data from open-ended responses were analyzed based on themes, then shown in excerpts. The key findings reveal that four dimensions of reading engagement have been implemented by EFL teachers. Both students and teachers show positive reading behavior and attitude toward reading materials and activities. These findings map the reading engagement practiced in EFL classes in secondary schools in Indonesia, which add knowledge about RE strategies improving EFL teachers' strategies to engage students in reading English texts, which is expected to enhance students' English reading comprehension and literacy.

Self-directed learning (SDL) requires students to take initiative to learn and control their own learning process. Literature highlights the importance of SDL for lifelong learning. Yet, little understanding is known regarding how to support SDL at the school level, specifically for out-of-class learning context. To fill up this gap, this research developed a learning dashboard and integrated SDL process management in GOAL system. It was implemented to provide support for out-of-class online self-directed extensive reading (SDER) at a high school level. A two-group study conducted during a three-week spring vacation found the experimental group (N = 35, with SDL support) achieved significantly more reading outcomes than the control group (N = 12, without SDL support). Detailed GOAL interaction behavior analysis of the experimental group showed that viewing learning dashboard was significantly correlated with reading outcomes as well as interactions related to SDL process management. These findings highlights positive effect of SDL support in GOAL on students' out-of-class SDER outcomes as well as their SDL behaviors. The study provided implications for research related to extensive reading and SDL support for out-of-class learning.

Given the growing movement in support of blurring the divisions between language and literature teaching, it has become increasingly vital to understand what language teachers think of literature as a language resource, the approaches they employ when teaching with it, the extent to which they can appreciate, understand, analyse, and interpret literary texts, that is, their literary competence, and whether certain traits predict such competence. Yet, research into the use of literature in language education has been primarily concerned with learners rather than teachers. This article reports on an online questionnaire-based study that explored the creativity, orientations towards literature, teaching approaches, and beliefs regarding literature of 170 language teachers in Central Asia and how these elements predicted their literary competence. Participants worked at universities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan and were teaching Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish as foreign languages. The findings revealed that their reading habits and creativity statistically significantly predicted their literary competence while their selection of texts was partly at odds with their professed orientations towards literature.

Background: It is well evident that individuals' levels of print exposure are significantly correlated with their reading ability across languages, and an author recognition test is commonly used to measure print exposure objectively. For the first time, the current work developed and validated a Simplified Chinese Author Recognition Test (SCART) and examined its role in explaining Chinese online reading. Methods: In Study 1, we constructed the SCART for readers of simplified Chinese and validated the test using data collected from 203 young adults in Mainland China. Participants were measured on the SCART and three self-report tasks about their reading experiences and habits. Study 2 recruited additional 68 young adults in Mainland and measured their print exposure (with the same tasks used in Study 1), reading-related cognitive ability (working memory, rapid automatic naming, Chinese character reading, and vocabulary knowledge), and Chinese online reading via an eye-tracking passage reading task. Results: Results of Study 1 support the high reliability and validity of the SCART. Results of Study 2 indicate that SCART scores significantly predicted participants' online reading processing while controlling for subjective reading experiences and habits, and reading-related cognitive abilities. Across two studies, we found converging evidence that the in-depth recognition of the authors (i.e., participants have read the books written by these authors) appears to be a better indicator of print exposure than the superficial recognition of the author names. Conclusions: Taken together, this work filled in the gap in the literature by providing an evidence-based, objective print exposure measure for simplified Chinese and contributes to a broader understanding of print exposure and online reading processing across different writing systems.

This study examined the effect of reading fluency on the reading miscues of fourth-grade elementary school students in Taiwan. The 63 research participants with good reading fluency were selected from 210 students and reading miscue analysis and retrospective miscue analysis were used to examine them. The study results found that "substitution of meaning" in section "substitution" appeared the most in reading miscues. After retrospective interviews, it was found that students would replace words based on their reading experience, reading habits, and prior knowledge, resulting in reading miscues. It is suggested that teachers should have standards for the interpretation and mastery of text words when teaching to reduce students' different performance in word learning and avoid affecting reading comprehension and reading fluency.

Motivation to read is crucial to improving reading skill. While there is extensive research examining reading motivation among elementary students, with respect to adolescents, research is limited. Employing a person-centered approach can aid in developing a better understanding of adolescent reading motivation and would help address possible barriers to engaging adolescent readers. The present study extracted reading motivation profiles in a sample of 367 high school students based on their responses on the Adaptive Reading Motivation Measure (ARMM). Three profiles emerged--high (HRM), ambivalent/neutral (ARM), and low reading motivation (LRM)--where students in the HRM profile performed better on the reading achievement assessment and reported reading more often compared to their peers in the other profiles. Results shed light on key facets of adolescent reading motivation, which have implications for addressing motivational barriers to engaging adolescent readers.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its concomitant restriction measures drastically altered the routines and learning formats of students from all levels. In addition, it has been shown that pandemic-related stress negatively impacted their mental health and cognitive functioning. Undergraduates have been signaled out as one of the populations most vulnerable to pandemic-related stressors. The following work examined the link between executive functions, perceived stress and reading comprehension among Argentinean university students during lockdown measures. In addition, potential effects of reading habits and screen exposure were considered. An executive function behavioral rating scale (ADEXI), a reading comprehension test and the PSS-10 stress questionnaire were administered to two-hundred social science students through an online survey. Executive difficulties increased with perceived stress, while lower inhibition was associated with longer TV times and being male. Stress and executive function associations can be interpreted as a detrimental effect, reverse or bidirectional causation. In turn, working memory issues led to worse comprehension (mediating the impact of perceived stress) while distal factors such as print exposure and mother education were positive predictors of reading outcomes (as expected). This finding suggests that undergraduates' difficulties to manipulate online information interfered with expository text processing, resulting in poorer comprehension performance.

Background: The home literacy environment (HLE) has rarely been examined for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, including individuals with Williams syndrome and Down syndrome. Method: The current study surveyed carers of individuals with Down syndrome (n = 48) and Williams syndrome (n = 18) in the United Kingdom (UK). Results: The study reports that individuals with Down syndrome were rated higher in general reading skills and writing, while the Williams syndrome group scored higher for speaking. Yet, individuals with Down syndrome were more likely to engage in informal activities than instructional activities and the frequency of informal activities related to reading outcomes for those with Down syndrome but not Williams syndrome. Additionally, this study reports that age was not related to the HLE for both groups. Conclusion: This is the first study to report on the HLE of individuals with Williams syndrome and supports the key role of the HLE in the development of literacy skills for individuals with Williams syndrome and Down syndrome.

The increasing use of digital technologies has implications for reading. Online and on-screen reading often consist of engaging with multiple, short, multimedia snippets of information, whereas longform reading is in decline. Meta-analyses have identified a screen inferiority when reading informational texts, but not narrative texts. The mode effect is explained by reference to the Shallowing Hypothesis, postulating that increased screen reading leads to a propensity to skim and scan rather than carefully read, since digital reading material is typically composed of short, decontextualized snippets of multimedia content rather than long, linear, texts. Experiments have found support for the Shallowing Hypothesis when reading expository/informational texts, but the impact of increased habituation to screens on, specifically, literary reading, is largely unknown. It is plausible that shallow modes of reading, prompted by increased screen use, may compromise one's capacity to engage deeply with literary texts and, in turn, negatively affect readers' motivation and inclination to engage in slower, more reflective, and more effortful reading. This article presents the results from three experiments exploring associations between reading behavior, medium preferences, and the reading of a short literary text on paper versus screen. Although mixed, the results revealed an overall pattern for the role of medium: more frequent reading of short texts on screen predicted less inclination to muster the cognitive persistence required for reading a longer text, and engage in contemplation on the deeper and personally relevant meaning of the literary text. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

This study aimed to examine the unique longitudinal role of theory of mind (ToM) on reading comprehension among primary school children, while controlling for other influencing factors. It also examined how this impact varies by grade, text genre, and processing level. A sample of 430 Chinese children in Grades 2, 4, and 6 was observed over a period of 6 months. For each grade, longitudinal hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the unique contribution of ToM to reading comprehension across different text genres and processing levels. By controlling for variables such as reading frequency, decoding, vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, listening comprehension, and executive function, ToM cannot predict the overall reading comprehension of children in Grade 2, but can predict it of children in Grades 4 and 6. For specific text genres, ToM predicted narrative comprehension in both Grades 4 and 6 and expository comprehension only in Grade 6. For specific processing levels, ToM predicted advanced comprehension in Grades 4 and 6 and basic comprehension only in Grade 6. Furthermore, ToM predicted advanced narrative and expository comprehension in Grades 4 and 6, and basic expository comprehension in Grade 6. These findings highlight the important role of ToM in reading comprehension development, particularly in the middle and upper stages of primary school. These results lay the foundation for further research on exploring the underlying mechanisms of the impact of ToM on reading comprehension and provide a social-cognitive perspective to enhance the development of reading comprehension.

COVID-19 has changed the daily lives of families, impacted on work, social interactions, and mental health. Since spring 2020, parents have been working from home and children have been home from daycare and school. Parents are experiencing stress in an attempt to satisfy the demands of work, family, and COVID-19 concerns. Due to the fact that children have been home from daycare and school, parents have the sole responsibility of caring for and teaching their children until schools are able to fully and effectively meet the needs of educating students in an adapted format. Research provides a wealth of information documenting the advantages of parents reading to their children. Children benefit from read-alouds with parental interaction, and these benefits include an increase in oral language skills, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and an increase in motivation to read. The purpose of this study is to answer two questions: (1) Since parents were home more often with their children, were parents spending more quality time reading to their two-to four-year-old children? This can be defined as reading developmentally appropriate books to their children with their undivided attention; and (2) Since parents were home more often with their two-to four-year-old children, were parents reading more to their young children? Parents of pre-kindergarten students were surveyed to determine the answers to these questions.

This study investigated demographic profiles, reading characteristics and processes of good and poor young adult readers. Data were collected from 149 undergraduate students studying at a state university in Türkiye through a questionnaire set and eye-tracking experiments. Groups of this study - good and poor readers - were defined according to their performance in a combination of three reading comprehension tests and an oral reading skills test. As a result, significant differences were found between good and poor young adult readers in terms of their ages, genders, the number of books they have in their libraries, and eye movements such as saccade and fixation counts, saccade length, dwell time, and regressions but no differences in their reading habits, strategies, and attitudes, parents' educational and economic levels, educational backgrounds, and saccade and fixation duration. Concentrating on several components of reading, this study thus provides a comprehensive perspective on the differences between good and poor readers.

This study examined gender differences in reading behavior of 2652 Danish 5th-grade students (age 10-12 years, girls 51%, 14% immigrant background) observed for 218 days in 2019/2020, using data from a popular reading app. Reading behavior was operationalized as time spent reading. Analyses of timing of reading behavior and models of day-to-day reading time were employed to investigate the gender gap in reading behavior. Results show that girls read more than boys. This differential can be attributed to girls reading more outside school hours, during weekends and holidays than boys while there are no gender differences in reading activity during school hours. Results suggest that girls with positive academic attitudes were more inclined to read than boys with similar attitudes.

Research on the effects of the socioeconomic status (SES) on literacy development of children with intellectual disabilities (ID) is limited. This study aimed to explore the SES's influence on literacy development of children with ID and possible mediating effects of home literacy environment (HLE) and the parent-child relationship. The subjects of this study were 390 children with ID from special needs schools in 14 regions of China, including 239 boys and 151 girls aged 7 to 15 years. This study adopted the network survey method, with parents of children with ID completing surveys on SES, HLE, literacy development, and the parent-child relationship. SES was found to positively predict literacy development of children with ID. Further, it was found that HLE played a mediating role in the prediction of literacy development by SES, and the parent-child relationship regulated the positive impact of HLE on literacy development. In conclusion, SES significantly influences literacy development of children with ID which is partially mediated by HLE. The parent-child relationship positively regulates the regression relationship between HLE and literacy development.

This paper explores young people's narratives about BookTok and volitional reading. The data consist of narrative interviews with eight students (all girls) from two different classes in year 1 and year 2 of a preparatory programme for higher education, that is, students aged 17-18 years old. Using the framework of Wenger's notion of communities of practice and Bamberg's theory of narrative positioning, the findings indicate that the volitional reading practices described by the participants are strongly characterised by social, physical, and emotional dimensions that are generated and made possible by the book as an artefact. The findings also show that young people use the digital media platform TikTok and its subcommunity BookTok as a resource in constructing their own volitional reading practices and as a means to strengthen their reader identities. In view of their use of BookTok, this article contributes insights into young people's volitional reading practices and the construction of reader identities outside of school. The results also contribute to the ongoing discussion about how to support and motivate young people to read literature.

Drawing on data from a mobile ethnography study of 12 adolescents from one secondary school, this article proposes to examine the everyday digital reading resources and practices of Singapore adolescent youths to better understand the print and new media (fiction) leisure reading habits of adolescents. Mobile ethnography, with its capacity to capture adolescents' actual reading through images, texts, and video recordings, provides a new way to document and understand the changing reading habits of adolescents. Participants documented their print and digital reading on a smartphone app over four days, followed by a photo-elicitation interview. Findings showed that these adolescents read for pleasure and were self-directed readers who invested time in reading various new media fiction texts such as ebooks, Japanese manga and fanfiction. Practices of new media reading include cross-media consumption, engagement in fandom behaviours, and interest-driven searching for diverse reading materials. Adolescents are motivated to read when the reading experience promises immersive entertainment. A good story, ease of access to interesting content and potential for multiple media engagements encourage adolescents' volitional reading. Implications for curriculum and future research on adolescent volitional reading are discussed.

Acceleration of digital communication has changed the nature of reading and young people today need to engage multimodal skills for reading success in the digital world. While historically there have been social justice issues for marginalised students in terms of reading, the digital age is creating new equity issues across the globe. This article draws on Nancy Fraser's social justice framework to explore Year 3 student (n = 318) beliefs about the value of reading, their reading practices and their opportunities for developing digital reading skills. Findings illustrate that students believe that reading is a valuable skill - however a surprising finding was the focus on reading to secure a good job. Of concern, the students' situatedness and personal reading experiences did not necessarily prepare them for success as readers or offer the resources required to transition into the careers to which they aspired.

Elementary education is critical as it lays the foundation for learning, critical thinking, social and emotional development, individual growth, and self-confidence. Hence, studying the elementary students' educational progress is immensely important. This manuscript aims to investigate the factors that impact elementary students' academic performance, predict their academic performance, and use the above factors to identify the student's appropriate skilled level group based on their academic performance. In this study, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) score, a measurement to assess students' early literacy skills for K-6 graders, is used to quantify students' academic performance. A sample of 185 first and second graders and their features, including student's BMI (body mass index), amount of time the student spends watching television, student's gender, number of hours that a student sleeps each night, amount of time that the student spends reading books, student's race, and amount of time that the student spends on physical activity are used. Based on the regression analysis, second graders' academic performances are significantly impacted by their BMI values ([beta] = - 4.002, p < 0.05) and the amount of time students spend reading books ([beta] = 29.14, p < 0.05). The first graders' academic performances are significantly impacted by the amount of sleeping time ([beta] = 41.89, p < 0.01) and their gender ([beta] = - 37.129, p < 0.05). Furthermore, the experimental findings indicate that machine-learning techniques accurately predict the students' appropriate academic group. In the naive Byers classifier, students in the lowest academic performance group can be identified successfully with a sensitivity of 92%, and the students in the highest academic group can be identified with a specificity value of 100%.

Quality caregiving practices facilitate early childhood development. This study examined the levels of parents' engagement in caregiving activities with children aged 36-59 months and the socioeconomic and child-rearing environmental factors. A total of 1035 children and their caregivers were analysed using the Vietnam Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2014. Multivariate logistic regression was performed separately for each following outcome caregiving activity: reading books, telling stories, singing songs, naming/counting, taking the child outside, and playing with child. Results showed that fathers' engagement levels were substantially lower than the mothers' in all caregiving activities. Reading books and telling stories was among the least frequent activities engaged in by both parents. Results from the logistic regression model showed that parental high education level, richest household wealth, and having adequate learning resources at home were positively associated with parents' engagement in caregiving activities. These findings provide important evidence for promoting positive parental caregiving.

The Ministry of Education and Culture developed the school literacy movement (SLM) program. This program aims to foster student interest in reading and improve reading skills so that knowledge can be mastered better. The author uses a literature review design by collecting data from various journal sources relevant to the SLM program in elementary schools, Indonesia. This research is an analytical descriptive study, which is a regular breakdown of the data that has been obtained, then understanding and explanation are given so that it can be understood well by the reader. The selected journal criteria are journals published in 2015-2021. SLM activities in elementary schools are influenced by supporting and inhibiting factors. The supporting factor is that the principal has a good commitment to carry out SLM activities, teachers and students and other components of the school also contribute to the success of SLM activities in elementary schools. Availability of sufficient funds to provide the necessary books is also a factor supporting SLM. While the inhibiting factor is that there are still very few books available so students cannot choose reading books that match their interests. Reading books is the main factor that must exist to make this SLM activity a success. Therefore, the procurement of reading books is very necessary. Students' reading habits are still low, they are still waiting for the teacher's orders to carry out SLM activities. The SLM schedule is not fully for 15-minute reading activities as specified in the manual. Lack of parental involvement in SLM activities.

The purpose of the research is to determine whether the critical thinking tendencies of Turkish teachers differ according to various variables. The research group contains 229 Turkish teachers working in Turkey's public schools. In the research survey method was used, which is selected among descriptive research methods. The tendency of teachers was measured by a scale called "The Marmara CTT Scale (CCI)" developed for teachers and administrators by Özgenel and Çetin (2018). The scale involves 6 factors, 28 items and the general reliability coefficient was found to be 0.91. In the end of the research, it was seen that Turkish teachers were at good level of CTT. It has been determined that there is no significant link between the gender, education level and professional seniority of Turkish teachers and their CTT. Furthermore, it was observed that the frequency of reading had an effect on the CTT of Turkish teachers. Accordingly, as the frequency of reading of the participants increased, the level of their CTT increased, too. The findings were discussed in the light of the studies in the literature and at the end, various recommends were given to the education stakeholders.

The purpose of the research was to determine the opinions of middle school students about the inclusion of controversial issues in social studies course. In this mixed methods study, an explanatory design was used, and the participants involved middle school students studying in Kirsehir, Osmaniye, and Diyarbakir provinces of Turkey during the 2020-2021 academic year. The quantitative data were collected using the "Student Questionnaire for Controversial Issues" while the qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS 25 and the qualitative data were analyzed through MAXQDA 20. In the analysis of quantitative data, descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation) and t-test and one-way analysis of variance/ANOVA were used since the data had normal distribution. Tukey test was administered to determine between which groups the difference existed. In the qualitative phase, audio-recorded interviews were converted into Word files, then analyzed and divided into meaningful codes. Four themes emerged by combining the codes in common categories. As a result of the research, it was found that the controversial topics that the students wanted to be included in the social studies course the most were human rights and violence. Whilst the subject of terrorism was determined as the subject that the students did not want to be included in the lesson in the quantitative dimension, it was determined that there were different opinions among the students regarding including the subject of terrorism in the qualitative dimension. It was also found that participants' opinions about the inclusion of controversial issues differed in terms of gender, grade level, the city they live in, and reading habits. The reason why all of the students wanted controversial topics to be included in the course was to learn about controversial issues and to raise their awareness of these issues. [This study was presented at the 8th International Eurasian Educational Research Congress.]

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of reading habits among college level foundation Omani students and their impact on the participants' performance in tests. The study used a qualitative and quantitative research method in which 70 participants from the foundation level were included. A survey questionnaire was used to collect qualitative data, while two college-based reading tests were used to collect quantitative data from the college-based tests. The main research question this study attempted to answer was whether foundation-level students have positive reading habits and attitudes towards books. At the end of the study, the data were analyzed quantitatively, using descriptive and inferential statistics to ascertain whether there was a correlation between positive reading habits in English and the participants' performance in an examination setting. The results indicated that positive reading habits correlated positively with the participants' test scores on two consecutive tests. Given the positive effects that emerged from the current study, the researchers would like to recommend that English reading teachers guide and encourage their learners to engage in reading as much as possible, as such habits will help them improve all aspects of literacy and succeed in achieving their educational and life goals with ease.

Conceptually, although the effectiveness of communication is generally associated with the development of language skills, studies that model this relationship comprehensively are limited. Based on this, the current study examines the relationship between different linguistic variables (listening skills, attitude towards reading habits, speech self-efficacy, and writing disposition) and their own and communication skills. The study data was collected from 566 prospective teachers in Turkey. As a result of the study, the theoretical structure between linguistic variables and communication skills has been statistically proven. In the model, it was seen that the model-data fit was at a good level (X[superscript 2]/df=4.46, CFI=0.955, RMSEA=0.078, SRMR=0.033). The proposed model indicates that listening skills affect communication skills at a medium level and speech self-efficacy at a high level. In addition, writing disposition affects communication skills indirectly through speech self-efficacy, and reading habits affect communication skills indirectly through both listening skills and speech self-efficacy. The highest relationship is between listening skills and speech self-efficacy. Also, the relationships between all the variables are significant. The study supports existing hypotheses about the role language plays in communication skills.

Reading comprehension has a critical importance for almost every aspect of individuals' life. The aim of this study is to reveal the relations among students' perceptions of their Turkish language teachers' behaviours that encourage reading engagement, levels of reading enjoyment, reading self-efficacy, and reading success within the frame of a model, using PISA 2018 Turkey data. The study is based on the correlational research model and the sample includes 6450 (F= 3247, M= 3203) students who completed the PISA 2018 Turkey questionnaire. The data obtained from the PISA 2018 database were analyzed using the structural equation model (SEM) and the sobel test. SEM analyses revealed that the hypothesized model well fits the data and all the regression paths in the model are statistically significant. According to the research findings, teachers' behaviours that encourage students' reading engagement (TBESRE), reading enjoyment, and reading self-efficacy have significant direct effects on reading achievement. In addition, TBESRE has significant indirect effects on reading achievement through reading enjoyment and reading self-efficacy, and that reading self-efficacy has a significant indirect effect on reading achievement through reading enjoyment. Considering the findings of this study, it is recommended that teachers implement practices to encourage students' participation in reading activities and develop educational interventions to improve reading enjoyment and reading self-efficacy.

One of the essential characteristics of the human being as social existence is his ability to communicate with his environment. There are many ways for people to communicate. However, the most preferred form of communication in interpersonal relations was primarily speaking. Effective use of speaking skills can be said to be possible if individuals have sufficient vocabulary. This research aims to examine the vocabulary of Indonesian students learning Turkish in their oral expressions in terms of various variables. The research study group consists of 25 Indonesian students who have completed Turkish language education at the C1 level and are studying in different faculties and departments of Bursa Uludag University. The primary data of the research consists of interviews with Indonesian students who learn Turkish as a foreign language. A semi-structured interview form was used to collect data in the study. The vocabulary of Indonesian students in their oral expressions was obtained by calculating the number of words they used once, the number of different words they used, and the total number of words they used. SCP 4.07 and SPSS 25.0 package programs were used in the numerical analysis of the data. Data were analyzed with Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests. In line with the findings, it was concluded that the vocabulary in the oral expressions of Indonesian students who learn Turkish shows a significant difference in the number of languages they know other than Turkish and the frequency of reading newspapers.

Today, learning no longer takes place on a definite place or time; rather, it has an ongoing and interactive nature, lasting throughout one's life. Relatedly, reading is usually considered to enhance learning, communication and the exchange of ideas. Given the importance of becoming a lifelong learner, this study focuses on the influence of reading habits on lifelong learning tendencies of university students as mediated by their enthusiasm for reading. A predictive correlational research model was employed to test the proposed hypotheses. A total of 376 undergraduates with diverse backgrounds were surveyed in a central city of Turkey. The mediated-path analysis demonstrated that belief in the impact of reading is a prominent predictor of university students' lifelong learning tendencies. Further, enthusiasm for reading was explored to mediate the link between beliefs in the impact of reading and lifelong learning tendencies. This study contributes to the debate and research on lifelong learning by using a national case which is relatively understudied and underrepresented international higher education research. It also adds to the theme by revealing direct and indirect paths between university students' beliefs in reading and lifelong learning tendencies as mediated by their enthusiasm for reading.

Children's early literacy experiences are critical, yet it remains unclear whether memories of early reading instruction continue to be associated with reading habits into adulthood. We examined the association between recollections of reading experiences and present-day reading habits in an adult population. University students responded in writing to three open-ended prompts asking about their memories of reading during early childhood, elementary school and high school. They also completed two questionnaires inquiring about reading enjoyment and frequency in elementary school and high school. For the concurrent measures of reading, participants described their current reading habits in an open-ended prompt and completed an author recognition test. Results showed positive links between favourable memories of reading during elementary and high school years and present-day reading habits. Conversely, unfavourable memories during high school were associated with unenthusiastic present-day reading habits. We found that reading instruction in school forms long-lasting memories, and these memories are linked in meaningful ways with print exposure during adulthood.

A variety of systemic inequities place young children from Appalachian communities in the United States at greater risk for poor academic outcomes than children in other parts of the country. Young children with disabilities are at increased risk for poor academic outcomes because of similar inequities and their need for more intensive learning opportunities. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between early literacy skills and home literacy environment of Appalachian preschool children with disabilities. We completed an online literacy screening tool with 57 children between 3 and 6 years of age who had an Individualized Education Program. Parents completed a questionnaire measuring home literacy environment (parenting beliefs and practices). Children's scores on the screening tool were not associated with parent reading beliefs but were associated with modeling writing and communication. Neither parent beliefs nor practices were predictive of children's literacy screening scores. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

This research aims to examine the relationship between high school students' reading habits and their smartphone addiction level. The sample consisted of 512 high school students studying in various private schools located in Turkish cities of Istanbul and Edirne. High school students were included in the study using the convenience sampling method. The study was conducted by using the correlational model of quantitative research methods such as descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, one-way variance analysis, and Pearson correlation coefficient techniques. High school students' smartphone addiction level was found to be moderate, with 8.81 books being read by students over a year. When reading books, students were found to have quitted the reading practice 2.96 times on average. The analysis of the results showed that girls were more likely than boys to tend towards smartphone addiction. As far as the reading habits are concerned, the students who reported poor reading habits or did not read any book during the week, and the ones who expressed a distraction each time reading a book reported higher smartphone addiction levels. A significant positive relationship was found between smartphone addiction and the number of distractions while reading. Consequently, a significant negative relationship was found between the high school students' smartphone addiction level and their reading behaviours, and some recommendations were offered for practitioners and future researchers.

This paper reports the findings of a study that develops a participatory model for TESOL teachers' continuous professional development (CPD) in Oman. This study used an action research methodology and data were collected using an online discussion group, semi-structured and focus group interviews with participant teachers. The findings indicated that the centralised top-down nature of the current CPD system seems to negatively affect the success of CPD in the in-service TESOL context in Oman. The evaluation of the participatory model of CPD adopted in this study showed that this model has a positive impact on participant teachers' CPD and three aspects of change were noticed: teachers' beliefs, their practices about CPD, and change in students (e.g., their reading habits). The data showed that the participatory model of CPD enabled teachers to make decisions regarding their CPD and encouraged them to play the role of critical reflective practitioners as well as preparing them as future transformative intellectuals.

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between critical reading skills and creative reading perceptions of fifth grade students. In the study, correlational research design was employed. The population of the study consisted of approximately 5000 fifth grade students studying at schools in the city center and at central village schools in Usak Province, Turkey in the 2019-2020 academic year. The sample of the study consisted of 446 fifth grade students selected from this population through stratified sampling. To collect the data, the "Critical Reading Skill (CRS) Scale" and the "Perception Scale of Creative Reading" (PSCR) scale were used. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, correlation, one-way and two-way analysis of variance, regression analysis and one-way multivariate analysis of variance were used. As a result of the research, it was found that there was a positive and significant relationship between the critical reading skills and creative reading perception levels of fifth grade students (r =0.886, p<0.01). In addition, it was found that critical reading skill was a significant predictor of creative reading perception (R[superscript 2] =0.785, p<0.01). It was concluded that gender groups did not significantly affect the relationship between critical reading skill level and creative reading perception level of fifth grade students while average daily TV viewing time and the number of the books read in a month variables significantly affected this relationship. In addition, it was revealed that critical reading skill scores were significant predictor of creative reading perception scores. Lastly, our results indicated that critical reading skill level and the number of the books read in a month had common effect on the creative reading perception level of the students.

This study aimed to determine the levels of Turkish teacher candidates' critical thinking dispositions and their attitudes toward book reading habits, examine them according to various variables, and reveal the relationship between Turkish teacher candidates' critical thinking dispositions and their attitudes toward book reading habits. Relational survey model was used in this study. The study sample consists of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-grade Turkish teacher candidates who studied in the Department of Turkish Education in the Faculty of Education of a state university in the spring semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. The research data were collected using the "Personal Information Form" prepared by the researchers, the "Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale" developed by Akbiyik (2002), and the "Attitude Scale towards Reading Habit" developed by Gömleksiz (2004). The valid 165 questionnaires were analyzed in statistical programs. As a result of analyzes, it was determined that the critical thinking dispositions of Turkish teacher candidates and their total attitudes towards their reading habits were slightly above the level of "I agree". According to the results obtained, Turkish teacher candidates' critical thinking dispositions differ significantly according to the average number of books read monthly and the grade point average variables. Attitudes toward book reading habits also differ significantly according to the average number of books read monthly and grade point average variables. Furthermore, there is a moderately positive and significant correlation between Turkish teacher candidates' critical thinking dispositions and their attitudes toward book reading habits.

This paper's objective is to give a thorough summary of research on the reading behavior of Chinese primary and secondary school students. The majority of existing research in this field focuses on the importance of extensive reading, the status quo of reading practices among Chinese students, factors that influence student reading behavior, and techniques for enhancing student reading accomplishment. It is proposed that this review will generate more interest in the development of basic education students' reading skills.

In this study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between middle school students' academic risk-taking behaviours and writing anxiety. This relational survey type research was carried out in the 2020-2021 academic year. The sample of the study consists of 493 middle school students in a city in Turkey. The data of the study were obtained from the "Academic Risk-Taking Scale" and the "Writing Anxiety Scale". Correlation Analysis tests were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it was found that there is a moderately significant negative correlation between the academic risk-taking behaviours of middle school students and their writing anxiety. While there was no significant difference in the academic risk-taking behaviours of the students in terms of school type, grade level, number of pages in reading books and academic achievement scores in the mother tongue course, a significant difference was found in terms of the variables determined in writing anxiety.