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Poor comprehenders are a significant subgroup of poor readers who, due to their ability to read aloud accurately, are often difficult to identify. This study aimed to determine whether assessment using two oral language tasks, mapped onto the two components of the Simple View of Reading, would provide an efficient approach to identification. Children (N = 218) from School Years 3 to 6 (ages 7; 8-12; 1) attending two schools in Australia were assessed, and 45 identified as potential poor comprehenders, based on a profile of average phonological awareness but poor listening comprehension. Subsequent assessment of decoding and text reading comprehension confirmed 24 of these children to be poor comprehenders, consistent with reported prevalence rates. Five of these children were judged to be weak readers by their classroom teacher. The oral tasks alone overidentified this group; however, the findings suggest that using the tasks as an initial phase, followed up with a reading assessment, could be effective in identifying poor comprehenders, and reduce time spent in testing as this would only involve at-risk children.

Dyslexia is characterized by poor word reading. In research, education, and diagnosis, "oral" reading is commonly assessed, and outcomes are generalized to "silent" reading, although similarities and differences between oral and silent reading are poorly understood. We therefore compared oral word reading, oral text reading and silent text reading. Children (n = 40; aged 8-11) and adolescents (n = 54; aged 14-18) with dyslexia, and typical readers (n = 18, and n = 24 respectively), read a word-list and an age-appropriate text aloud, and silently read a text including instructions for simple tasks. Whereas oral and silent reading fluency were comparable for children, silent reading was more fluent than oral reading for adolescents. Importantly, the silent reading deficit of children and adolescents with dyslexia was as large as in oral reading or larger, highlighting the need for a focus on both reading modes in research, diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia.

For children to become strong readers, they need to learn a huge number of words--at least 100,000 by the time they get to eighth grade. It is impossible to teach that much vocabulary directly; children gain most of their vocabulary indirectly, as their knowledge of the world expands. This article discusses how much of this learning happens through conversations and read-alouds. Parents and caregivers play a crucial role in giving their children access to the vocabulary, complex sentence structure, and knowledge they need to be successful, beginning at birth.

Purpose: The Motor Planning Theory of Prosody and reading prosody research indicate that "out of the blue" oral reading, as practiced in clinical and research settings, invokes surface rather than covert prosody, particularly when readers are recorded, less skilled, and/or speech impaired. Warm-up is not considered in passage reading for motor-speech assessment. We report on a preliminary study aimed to investigate the effect of warm-up on reading prosody in two conditions: silent reading alone and reading "out of the blue" followed by silent reading. A secondary aim of the study was to examine the effect of reading skill on reading prosody. Method: Twenty-one monolingual, English-speaking volunteers were recorded reading the My Grandfather Passage (GP) while their eye movements were tracked. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two reading conditions: (a) silent-oral (SO) and (b) oral-silent-oral (OSO). In the SO condition, participants read the GP silently as a warm-up for the subsequent oral reading. In the OSO condition, participants first read the GP aloud ("out of the blue") and then read the same passage silently with the instruction to do this in preparation for a second oral reading. Reading skill was quantified using eye-voice span and Wide Range Achievement Test--Fourth Edition testing. Reading prosody was evaluated using pause indexes, the Acoustic Multidimensional Prosody Index, and speech rate. Conclusions: One oral reading before a silent reading but not a silent reading alone before oral reading was shown to affect reading prosody. In terms of reading skill, results indicate that predictive associations patterned differently in the reading conditions explored, suggesting different underlying skill sets.

Background: Sleep problems are common in children and are known to detrimentally affect language and cognitive abilities, as well as academic achievement. Aims: We aimed to investigate effects of sleep on oral word and non-word reading in a large, cross-sectional sample of children. Sample: Of 428 children who attended a public psychological science event, 339 children aged 4-14 years (mean 8;10 ± 2;2) took part. Methods: Parents completed two sleep questionnaires (Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire and Sleep-Disordered Breathing Questionnaire) whilst children completed the Test of Word Reading Efficiency. Results: Hierarchical multiple linear regression assessed whether parentally reported sleep problems were able to predict word and non-word oral reading speeds as measures of sight word reading and phonemic decoding efficiency, respectively. Children with parent-reported increased sleep-disordered breathing, daytime sleepiness, and shorter sleep latency had poorer performance on the reading task for both words and non-words, as well as the total combined score. The models explained 6-7% of the variance in reading scores. Conclusions: This study illustrates associations between sleep and word and non-word reading. The small but significant effect is clinically meaningful, especially since adverse factors affecting children's reading ability are cumulative. Thus, for children with multiple risk factors for poor reading ability, sleep problems may be another avenue for treatment. Since reading ability is a strong predictor of later academic success and life outcomes, our study provides important evidence to suggest that children with sleep problems should also be screened for literacy difficulties, and children with literacy difficulties be screened for sleep problems.

This study explored the role that select components of executive functioning play in predicting reading outcomes in gifted students both directly and indirectly through a broader set of preliteracy skills. A comparison of mediation models indicated the relationships between working memory and inhibition to reading outcomes were fully, rather than partially, mediated by the preliteracy skills. The relationship between inhibition and reading outcomes was mediated through symbol imagery. Symbol imagery served as a mediator to all reading outcomes in this study (Letter Word, Oral Reading Fluency [ORF], and Northwest Evaluation Association Reading Fluency). A measurement of Working Memory in kindergarten was related to ORF in the second grade through speeded naming as a mediator. Neither early phonological processing nor early processing speed were related to the reading outcomes. Implications regarding the use of screening measures for identifying reading difficulties in primary age gifted students are discussed.

This study explores communication and retelling skills that are revealed after Mexican-American preschoolers engaged in culturally sensitive read alouds. Participants, highlighted in this article, included two four-year-old preschool children in a Spanish/English dual language classroom. The children selected culturally relevant texts and engaged in story retellings with their respective parent. The findings indicate that children co-constructed Zones of Proximal Development (ZPDs) in response to their parents' caring moves. Participants responded as cared-fors and carers as evident in their use of memorization skills and attention to detail to appropriate vocabulary and effectively retell a story. Additionally, preschoolers extended their ZPDs through imagination and inferencing by inserting events into the narrative and reading between the lines to expand and enrich the original stories. These findings have implications for reframing the way in which educators capitalize on young children's communication skills.

The purpose of this study was to examine children's reading performance and parents' use of reading support strategies throughout their participation in a family literacy program. In the program sessions, parents learned strategies to promote discussions around reading and strategies to support children at the word level. The program occurred in a second-grade and third-grade classroom with a culturally and linguistically diverse student population. This case study, with multiple embedded units, focuses on four parent-child dyads who participated in the program. Audio recordings of the home readings were examined for parents' strategy use across weeks, as well as changes in children's reading performance. Analyses of audio recorded parent-child readings showed that parents used both discussion and oral reading strategies to support their children's readings, and had various responses to the program training. Likewise, children showed gains in terms of reading rate, accuracy, and fluency as well as on independent reading measures, from the beginning of the program period to the end.

The aim of this study was to illuminate the relationships between the three components of oral reading fluency, sustained attention, working memory, and text comprehension in typically developing third-grade students (N = 140). The findings of hierarchical regression analysis reveal that speed, accuracy, and prosody together significantly explained the variance in text comprehension after taking sustained attention and working memory into account. In the final model, in which all variables were included, only prosody uniquely contributed to text comprehension. The subsequent mediation analyses revealed that prosody had a full mediating role in the relationship between working memory and text comprehension. This finding suggests that via retention of phonological information in the working memory, prosody contributes to the comprehension of the text.

This research set out to evaluate the reading material contained within the ELT coursebook English M1 which was designed for self-access use. There is relatively little research carried out after the use of materials and even less which draws on learners' reports about how they engaged with self-access material. This research addressed the end-users: the learners. Five aspects in the reading material were chosen for evaluation: the information provided in the texts (USA-centred), the fact that no follow-up activities or comprehension checks were provided, the use of glossaries, the illustrations, and the oral renditions of the text. The study adopted a qualitative research design. Twenty-four beginner level English learners were addressed through semi-structured interviews about how they engaged with the reading material and their reasons for doing things in the way they did. This research concluded that self-access reading materials must provide learners with a component of learner guidance and information concerning the affordances of what is delivered. The article ends with recommendations for the design of reading material particularly concerning situations in which learners are studying without the support of a teacher.

Purpose: This study examined the acoustic properties of Taiwanese (Southern Min) lexical tones produced in esophageal speech (ES) and pneumatic artificial laryngeal speech (PAL), including onset fundamental frequency (F0), slope of F0 contour, duration, and amplitude (intensity) of the vowel portion of syllables carrying seven Taiwanese tones. Method: Seven ES speakers, seven PAL speakers, and 18 normal laryngeal (NL) speakers (all male) read aloud target syllables carrying the tones in monosyllables, disyllables, and sentences. Acoustic features were measured with "Praat." Results: Acoustic analysis revealed (a) no significant effects of linguistic level on acoustic parameters except for duration, which generally significantly decreased from monosyllables to disyllables to sentences for Tones 1 and 5; (b) significant differences across the speaker groups in onset F0 (PAL > ES > NL), duration (PAL > NL and PAL > ES for all tones), and mean amplitude (PAL > NL > ES); and (c) no significant difference in mean slope of F0 contour across the speaker groups. Conclusions: These preliminary data on acoustic properties of Taiwanese tones produced by ES and PAL speakers could facilitate the design of therapeutic strategies for improving the intelligibility of alaryngeal lexical tones. Further studies are recommended to examine the relative perceptual importance of the acoustic parameters.

This quasi-experimental research explores the difference between the pausing patterns of native English and nonnative Turkish speakers of English concerning their pause durations preceding and following English adverbial clause conjunctions. The findings reveal statistically significant differences between native and nonnative participants for two conjunctions, namely "because" and "whereas." The study analyzes in detail the potential reasons for the difference and attributes the difference to three types of transfer: (i) transfer from teacher and teaching practices, (ii) transfer of cognitive planning habits in spontaneous speech to read speech, and (iii) transfer from other learners. Moreover, through experimental intervention, the current research tries to raise awareness in nonnative participants regarding their idiosyncratic pausing patterns. Based on the findings from the posttest measurements, we conclude that it is possible to fine-tune the pausing behavior of nonnative speakers of English. The study contributes to the literature on the teaching of temporal characteristics of speech.

This study sought to examine the effectiveness of Reading RACES (RR), a computer program designed to deliver a repeated reading intervention with culturally relevant passages. Specifically, this study examined the effects of RR on the oral reading fluency (ORF) and comprehension gains for first-grade learners in an urban setting and whether these gains would generalize to novel, generic passages. Five first-grade African American students at risk for reading failure were selected to participate in this study. Results indicated a functional relation between the use of RR and student gains in ORF and comprehension. All students who participated in this study demonstrated moderate to substantial gains on their ORF and comprehension on practiced passages. In addition, the data showed reading skills generalized to novel passages and maintained even 1 month following intervention. These findings extend the previous research base for RR. Limitations and future implications will be discussed.

This study examined the predictive validity and classification accuracy of individual- and group-administered screening measures relative to student performance on a year-end state reading assessment in two states. A sample of 321 students was assessed in the areas of word-level and text fluency, as well as reading comprehension in the fall of fourth grade. For individual measures, a group-administered reading comprehension test exhibited the highest classification accuracy (74%-80%) for both outcomes though no screener demonstrated optimal sensitivity and specificity levels. Using a multivariate approach, logistic regression results revealed minimal to no increase in classification accuracy over the single comprehension measure. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses determined local cut scores to maintain sensitivity constant at 0.90, which resulted in a large number of false positives. The implications and limitations of these findings for screening at the upper elementary level are discussed.

The purpose of this research is to enrich the process of developing the basic language skills of 4th grade students with digital story activities and games based on the Flipped Classroom Model (FCM). This study was conducted with 4th grade students in a Turkish course. It was based on action research. The Turkish courses were prepared according to the FCM. The aim was to develop basic language skills of the students with various activities. This study focused on digital story and games. For the digital story activity, the students prepared some scenes of the text they wrote with play dough, took pictures and recorded their voices by reading the text aloud. After that, they sent them to the researcher via WhatsApp. After gathering the material, digital stories were converted into a video. Before the game based activities, some texts and grammar topics were presented to the students. Then, some games were played in the classroom to reinforce the newly acquired knowledge. In conclusion, with the use of FCM, by enriching with digital story and game-based activities teaching-learning processes in Turkish courses, the development of students in many areas, firstly basic language skills, then cognitive, emotional, social and psychomotor skills were contributed.

This study aims to determine how listening comprehension levels of students are affected by listening to prosodic and non-prosodic readings vocalized by a computer and human. Third-grade students of four different classes at a primary school were randomly selected in a city center in the Western Black Sea Region of Turkey to participate in the study (n=91). Four equivalent classes formed the listening groups of the research in listening comprehension. The groups were (1) the group listening to the model prosodic reading, (2) the group listening to the computer prosodic reading, (3) the group listening to the model non-prosodic reading, and (4) the group listening to the computer non-prosodic reading. Two stories were used in the measurement of listening comprehension, and comprehension skills were measured with open-ended questions. The data obtained were analyzed with the Kruskal Wallis and Conover-Iman tests. Logistic Regression Analysis (LRA) was performed to reinforce the results and increase distinctiveness. According to the results, inferential comprehension scores of the students who listened to the prosodically-vocalized texts differed from other groups significantly. Meanwhile, literal comprehension scores of all students in the listening groups did not differ. The LRA results indicated that the inferential comprehension scores were a significant predictor of the listening groups. Consequently, the relationship between prosody and inferential comprehension was found to be significant in this study. The results also showed that it is necessary to attach particular importance to prosody in listening activities and to use prosodic models suitable for students in reading activities in the early grades of the primary school.

Background: A large amount of evidence highlights the obvious inequalities in literacy results of South African learners. Despite this, a sound understanding of how learners approach the task of reading in the African languages is lacking. Aim: This article examines the role of the syllable, phoneme and morpheme in reading in transparent, agglutinating languages. The focus is on whether differences in the orthographies of isiXhosa and Setswana influence reading strategies through a comparative study of the interaction between metalinguistic skills and orthography. Setting: Data was collected from Grade 3 first-language and Grade 4 Setswana home language learners attending no fee schools in the Eastern Cape and North West Province respectively. Methods: Learners were tested on four linguistic tasks: an open-ended decomposition task, a phonological awareness task, a morphological awareness task and an oral reading fluency task. These tasks were administered to determine the grain size unit which learners use in connected-text reading. Results: The results indicated that syllables were the dominant grain size in both isiXhosa and Setswana, with the use of morphemes as secondary grains in isiXhosa. These results are reflected in the scores of the metalinguistic tasks. Conclusion: This research contributes to an understanding of how linguistic and orthographic features of African languages need to be taken into consideration in understanding literacy development.

This study utilized secondary analyses of a randomized controlled trial and investigated the extent to which prestest word identification efficiency, reading fluency, and vocabulary knowledge moderated the effects of an intervention on reading comprehension outcomes for struggling readers in sixth through eighth grades. Given that the experimental intervention included components that targeted word reading, reading fluency, and vocabulary, we hypothesized that students with lower pretest performance in those skill domains would benefit more from the intervention compared to students with relatively stronger pretest performance or students who received school-implemented (business-as-usual) intervention. Results indicated that pretest word identification efficiency and vocabulary did not moderate the effects of the intervention; however, moderation effects were observed for pretest oral reading fluency such that reading comprehension gains of students with lower pretest fluency were greater in the experimental intervention compared to students with higher pretest fluency or in the comparison condition. Reasons for the moderation effect are discussed. Findings underscore the use of moderation analyses when evaluating multicomponent interventions.

When learning English, learners might face a challenging task in mastering pronunciation due to differences in both languages such as sound-to-letter correspondence, size of phoneme inventory, allophonic realization of sounds, place and manner of articulation, among others. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to review both theoretical and research reports on the most problematic sounds for Spanish-speakers English language learners. Approaches to second language learners' errors like Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis although being criticized have contributed to identifying likely causes of errors and dealing with them whether anticipating them or providing appropriate feedback on them. Besides, first language interference and age of second language acquisition have been found as complicating factors in the English pronunciation learning process. Finally, some classroom activities have been reported as successful for facilitating English pronunciation in Spanish native speakers.

The current study was conducted to measure the effectiveness of a repeated reading intervention for secondary level students identified with a specific learning disability. Although previous research suggests that repeated reading is an effective intervention to build oral reading fluency for students identified with disabilities, there is little research on its effectiveness with high school students who have been identified with a specific learning disability. This study used a multiple-probe across students design to measure the effectiveness of repeated reading as a strategy to improve oral reading fluency with high school students identified with a specific learning disability. A visual analysis of data suggested a functional relationship was demonstrated with all participating students. While there were differences in performance, the visual analysis indicated repeated reading had a positive affect on oral reading fluency with unpracticed passages for all three students.

In the process of screening and evaluating children with reading difficulties, and planning, monitoring, and evaluating reading improvement interventions for those children, standard reading tests are usually not used in Turkey. The first version of the Oral Reading Skills and Comprehension Test (SOBAT®) was developed by Prof. Dr. H. Gülsen ERDEN, and the validity and reliability studies of SOBAT® were conducted between 2002 and 2012. To expand to include children between the ages of 7 and 14, and form the parallel form of the test, A and B, a research project supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) completed between 2013 and 2015. The purpose of this paper is to share the pilot study findings of the project. A total of 232 tests were conducted within the scope of the pilot study.

This qualitative case study explored two Chinese international graduate students' beliefs about their reading and reading processes. The researcher interviewed the participants, asked them to read aloud, analyzed their reading using miscue analysis, and then discussed their reading with them using retrospective miscue analysis (RMA). The researcher found that readers' beliefs were not static and text difficulty influenced the students' reading beliefs and strategy use. Through RMA, both students became aware of their respective reading processes and they both became more confident as readers. This study suggests that RMA is an effective tool for English-as-an-additional language graduate students, as it helps in the construction of meaning and the improvement of disciplinary literacy skills.

It is known that parent involvement contributes to children's overall educational achievement as well as their literacy development. Home literacy, in particular, is critical in helping children who read below grade level. Studies also found that the quality of the interaction between the child and parent is as important as interactive opportunities. This article reports findings from a small multilingual and multicultural book bag program implemented among third grade elementary students for a semester. The main purpose of the study was to teach the participating parents to be literacy coaches for their children in order to enhance read-aloud experiences and to become more effective in helping their children with reading. Findings showed highly positive results evidenced by parent-child interactions. Participating parents reported that through strategy instruction provided by the researchers and interacting with other participating parents, they acquired more tools to be effective literacy coaches. Findings also revealed the difficult nature of promoting family literacy activities with busy parents, especially those who do not believe reading aloud can help their children improve their reading.

The research, which was taken into consideration, focused on assessing the effectiveness of vocabulary building through Read-Aloud Strategy for Primary level students. The main objective of the study was intended to identify the influence of read-aloud strategy on vocabulary building which is a key to other skills like reading comprehension and speaking skills and also to identify the effect of read-aloud strategy on the overall vocabulary development of the students of primary level. To achieve the above-stated objective, a quasi-experimental design was adopted where the research process was categorized as non-equivalent control group design with pre-test and post-test evaluation. Moreover, non-randomized sampling was followed and two already existing intact groups were allocated as experimental and control group respectively. The main aim of this study was focused on determining the level of vocabulary development of the students. The students selected for this study belonged to Private School in Lahore. In addition, the experiment was followed by an intervention where vocabulary tests, both pre and posttests, were used during the experiment. The statistical analysis of the pretest and post-test results of an experimental and control group revealed that read aloud is the most appropriate teaching strategy for vocabulary building. In addition, it was also revealed that teachers use different interaction techniques for read-aloud such as, more instructional time was spent on the words which were found to be critical for story comprehension for learners. From the findings, it can be recommended that the practices should be identified which are commonly used by the primary classroom teachers as it can lead towards the development of effective instructional strategies and teacher's training programs. Moreover, it was also recommended that the teachers should focus on the instructional strategies and should give individual attention to the students in order to make sure that each student is performing.

Background: We examined the component skills of reading comprehension (i.e., letter sound knowledge, syllable reading fluency, decoding fluency, text or oral reading fluency and listening comprehension) and their structural relations using data from three sub-Saharan African languages with transparent orthographies in a multilingual context. Methods: Data from Kiswahili (N = 946), Kikamba (N = 444) and Lubukusu (N = 499) reading assessments at the end of Grade 2 in Kenya were analysed using path analyses. Results: The magnitudes of the relations were similar across the three languages with some differences amongst the languages. Total effects (regression weights), accounting for direct and indirect effects, varied across the component skills: text reading fluency (0.73 to 0.77), decoding fluency (0.49 to 0.82), letter sound knowledge (0.44 to 0.45), syllable reading fluency (-0.12 to 0.16) and listening comprehension (0.08 to 0.23). Conclusions: The results indicate similar reading mechanisms across the three sub-Saharan languages. [This article was published in the "Journal of Research in Reading" (EJ1213011).]

Our understanding about the developmental similarities and differences between oral and silent reading and their relations to reading proficiency (word reading and reading comprehension) in beginning readers is limited. To fill this gap, we investigated 368 first graders' oral and silent reading using eye-tracking technology at the beginning and end of the school year. Oral reading took a longer time (greater rereading times and refixations) than silent reading, but showed greater development (greater reduction in rereading times and fixations) from the beginning to the end of the year. The relation of eye-movement behaviors to reading proficiency was such that, for example, less rereading time was positively related to reading proficiency, and the relation was stronger in oral reading than in silent reading. Moreover, the nature of relations between eye movements and reading skill varied as a function of the child's reading proficiency such that the relations were weaker for poor readers, particularly at the beginning of the year. The relations between eye movements and reading proficiency stabilized in the spring for children whose reading skill was 0.30 quantile and above, but weaker relations remained for readers below 0.30 quantile. These findings suggest the importance of examining eye-movement behaviors in both oral and silent reading modes and their developmental relations to reading proficiency.

The data of this descriptive correlational-study revealed that there is no significant difference in the level of comprehension in silent reading, between males and females. Moreover, in terms of the level of comprehension in oral reading, there is gender difference with females outperforming the males. In the first language, no significant relationship was drawn as both p-values are greater than alpha = 0.05. Interestingly, on socio-economic status,this influences the level of reading comprehension in SR (p-value = 0.000) as the p-value is less than alpha= 0.05. Moreover, the post hoc analysis using the Tukey test showed a significant difference between groupings, for the comprehension level in silent reading, between respondents of high SES and average and low SES with better SES outperforming those with lower SES. Likewise, a significant difference in the level of reading comprehension on SR was also revealed between those with average SES and low SES favoring those who have claimed to belong to average SES. However, There is no significant relationship between the level of comprehension in OR and the variables SES and Parental Involvement (PI) as shown by their respective p-values (0.280, 0.057) which are greater than alpha = 0.05. For the relationship between the dependent variable reading comprehension in SR and the independent variable SES, no significant relationship was drawn as shown by the p-value (0.728) which is greater than alpha = 0.05. Furthermore, for the influence of PI on the level of comprehension of the respondents in SR, a significant relationship was drawn as provided by the p-value (0.004) which is less than alpha = 0.05. Moreover, the relationship is characterized to be a low positive correlation. In addition, there is no significant difference in the level of comprehension in OR across SES.

In this study, it is aimed to examine the level of oral reading of the students studying on their 3rd degree, who are at the age range of 60-66 months, and the students who completed their 72nd month and started primary school. The sample of the study is constituted of 100 students in the 3rd grade who study in primary schools Usak city center. 51 of the students are between the age range of 60-66 months. 49 of the students were recorded to be 72-months old. As a result of the study, it has been identified that the students who started primary school between the age range of 60-66 months made the mistake of oral reading by omitting the syllable and adding the syllable rather than the students who had completed their 72nd month. The students did not make the translation of the words at all. The students made the mistake of contemplating most at the level of concern. It was observed that starting the process of reading with open syllables decreased the mistakes of oral reading. It was determined that time dependent reading and emotional problems increase the mistakes of oral reading.

This paper reports the qualitative analysis of an interlanguage study investigating Thai EFL students' pronunciation of English loanwords used in the Thai language. It aims to analyze the extent to which the stress and tonal systems in Thai affect the stress placement of English polysyllabic loanwords in the pronunciation of Thai students, as perceived by a native English listener. Participants were 30 English majors studying in a private university, classified into two groups: high and low, based on their relative English proficiency. Three tasks were used to collect data. Two oral-reading tasks included (1) reading the target English loanwords in English sentences, and (2) reading those words in isolation, which is regarded as a more formal style of oral-reading. The third task required the students to mark the primary stress symbol on the stressed syllable of each target word to assess their knowledge of the English stress patterns. The 30 target loanwords were classified into 3 categories: loanwords with two syllables, three syllables, and four syllables. The results show the transfer of the students' first language (L1) to the greatest extent when performing the oral reading of two-syllable loanwords in sentences. The use of full vowel length on the final syllable of the many two-syllable loanwords, presumably resulting from the carryover of the Thai stress system, led the native English listener to perceive the final syllable as being stressed. Interestingly, for loanwords with three and four syllables, it was found that although it appeared that the students placed stress quite randomly, only a small number of students misplaced stress on the final syllable. It could be hypothesized that many students became aware, from their learning experience, that stress does not usually fall on the last syllable of loanwords containing certain suffixes that they were familiar with. Thus, they avoided placing stress on the last syllable of these loanwords. The findings suggest that transfer of the stress and tonal systems in Thai plays a crucial role in the pronunciation of frequently-used loanwords with two syllables when the students read these words in English sentences.

This brief report summarizes the development and psychometric properties of German reading fluency passages as compared to English reading fluency passages for immersion language learners. Results indicated that scores from German language reading fluency passages alone were (a) somewhat less reliable than scores from English publisher-developed passages, (b) similarly valid measures of reading when compared to scores from English reading fluency passages, and (c) more accurate than publisher-provided English cut-scores but not as accurate as locally developed English cut-scores in the identification of at-risk readers.

Purpose: This study presents the results of acoustic and kinematic analyses of word-initial semivowels (/[voiced alveolar approximant], l, w/) produced by second-language (L2) speakers of English whose native language is Korean. In addition, the relationship of acoustic and kinematic measures to the ratings of foreign accent was examined by correlation analyses. Method: Eleven L2 speakers and 10 native speakers (first language [L1]) of English read "The Caterpillar" passage. Acoustic and kinematic data were simultaneously recorded using an electromagnetic articulography system. In addition to speaking rate, two acoustic measures (ratio of third-formant [F3] frequency to second-formant [F2] frequency and duration of steady states of F2) and two kinematic measures (lip aperture and duration of lingual maximum hold) were obtained from individual target sounds. To examine the degree of contrast among the three sounds, acoustic and kinematic Euclidean distances were computed on the F2-F3 and "x-y" planes, respectively. Results: Compared with L1 speakers, L2 speakers exhibited a significantly slower speaking rate. For the three semivowels, L2 speakers showed a reduced F3/F2 ratio during constriction, increased lip aperture, and reduced acoustic Euclidean distances among semivowels. Additionally, perceptual ratings of foreign accent were significantly correlated with three measures: duration of steady F2, acoustic Euclidean distance, and kinematic Euclidean distance. Conclusions: The findings provide acoustic and kinematic evidence for challenges that L2 speakers experience in the production of English semivowels, especially /[voiced alveolar approximant]/ and /w/. The robust and consistent finding of reduced contrasts among semivowels and their correlations with perceptual accent ratings suggests using sound contrasts as a potentially effective approach to accent modification paradigms.

Background: Previous work suggests that children can teach themselves new written words via reading aloud texts independently (i.e., orthographic learning via self-teaching). In self-teaching in Chinese, regular phonetic radicals and transparent semantic radicals facilitate orthographic learning. The present study examined the roles of phonetic and semantic radicals in both orthographic learning and oral vocabulary learning via self-teaching among Chinese children. Methods: Thirty-four Mandarin-speaking second graders read aloud and comprehended 12 stories annotated with Pinyin, a phonetic script in Chinese. Each story included a semantic-phonetic compound pseudocharacter appearing five times. The phonetic radicals were classified as one-third regular, one-third semiregular and one-third irregular. These phonetic radicals carried full, partial or no phonetic information, depending on their regularity. Moreover, half of the semantic radicals were either transparent or opaque, meaning that they were semantically related or unrelated to the meaning of the pseudocharacters, respectively. Learning outcomes included participants' oral vocabulary learning and orthographic learning regarding word recognition and spelling. Results: In addition to the well-studied orthographic learning, children can also achieve vocabulary learning via self-teaching. Results indicate that transparent semantic radicals facilitated orthographic and vocabulary learning. Moreover, vocabulary learning was facilitated by regular phonetic radicals but hindered by semiregular phonetic radicals. Conclusions: These findings, together, point to the roles of phonetic and semantic radicals in Chinese children's orthographic and vocabulary learning. Findings advance our understanding of self-teaching across writing systems and add to the educational value of self-teaching.

Purpose: The main objective of the present study was to examine the effect of word length, word frequency and number of syllables on graphemic errors during a text-reading task via the braille code. Method: Thirty students with severe visual impairments participated in the present study. They were invited individually to read aloud a number of texts via the braille code for forty-five minutes beginning from the text that corresponded to their equivalent reading level. Results: A binary logistic regression analysis revealed a word length effect on long words but not on short or medium words indicating that despite the gradual insertion of the braille characters, the braille readers were able to efficiently process large perceptual units. Moreover, braille readers produced three times more graphemic errors in the second half of the long words compared to the first half, while the students who attended secondary education performed more graphemic errors when they read short words compared to students enrolled in primary education. Conclusion: The presence of the word length effect only on long words indicates that text reading via the braille code is mostly, but not exclusively, in parallel.

Children may link words in their oral vocabulary with novel printed word forms through a process termed mispronunciation correction, which enables them to adjust an imperfect phonological decoding. Additional evidence suggests that sentence context may play a role in helping children to make link between a word in oral vocabulary and its irregular written form. Four groups of children were orally trained on a set of novel words but received no training on a second set. Half the trained words were designated irregular spellings and half regular spellings. Children later read the words in contextually supportive or neutral sentences while their eye movements were monitored. Fixations on untrained words were longer than on trained regular words but were similar to trained irregular words. Fixations on regular words were shorter than on irregular words, and there were larger differences between irregular and regular words viewed in contextually supportive sentences. Subsequently, children were able to read irregular words more accurately when they had previously appeared in a supportive context. These results suggest that orally known irregular words undergo additional processing when first viewed in text, which is consistent with the online operation of a mispronunciation correction mechanism.

Disproportionality in the identification of disabilities among children who are culturally and linguistically diverse is an ongoing challenge for educators. A practice that may help address issues of disproportionality is the use of universal screening and progress monitoring data for academic skills as well as English language proficiency data to better understand student growth patterns. The case study described in this manuscript illustrates how data on oral reading fluency, when examined by English language proficiency levels, may help school teams better recognize diverse students who may need additional intervention or further evaluation for possible disability. Examining data by English language proficiency level acknowledges the diversity of skills among English learners and helps counter the tendency to view English learners as a homogenous student group.

The current study examined the validity of curriculum-based measures (CBM) in mathematics computation (M-COMP) and oral reading fluency (R-CBM) in predicting spring mathematics and reading performance level and performance risk (>1 SD below the national mean) among students classified as English Learners (ELs). Additionally, the current study assessed the incremental predictive value of English language proficiency (ELP) beyond CBM performance. The results indicated that ELP explains a significant portion of variability above M-COMP and R-CBM and increases the accuracy of predicting at-risk performance status on spring measures of mathematics and reading. The findings highlight the challenges of assessing the predictive accuracy of M-COMP and R-CBM among students classified as ELs, as well as the extent to which comprehensive measures of ELP account for variance in both performance level and at-risk status beyond CBMs. The implications for school data-based decision-making for language-minoritized students and directions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among phonological skills, reading fluency, and reading comprehension across reading modality (oral and silent) for a sample of students (N = 121) in grades 2-5 who have been diagnosed with dyslexia. Participants were administered text-level oral and silent reading fluency and comprehension assessments and selected phonological processing measures at the beginning and end of the school year. Cross-lagged path analyses were used to examine the relations among the phonological processing and reading skills across two theoretical models, one depicting reading fluency as a single construct and another representing rate and accuracy separately. Across models, results indicated that oral reading contributed to silent reading development but that this relation was not reciprocal. RAN emerged as a robust contributor to all aspects of oral and silent reading examined in this study, whereas phonological awareness contributed to fluency across modalities but did not impact end-of-year comprehension. Results generally followed a pattern of progression from lower to higher reading skills and from oral to silent reading. Further, important trends with regard to the contribution of phonological awareness to fluency subskills (rate and accuracy) were obscured when fluency was considered as a single construct, suggesting that it may be important for researchers to consider these subskills separately.

This study investigated the oral reading strategy use of 51 first-grade readers in a Chinese Dual-Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programme. It attempted to answer the following research questions: (1) What reading strategies do first-grade Mandarin Chinese DLBE learners employ to decode Chinese text during oral reading? (2) Do the first-grade readers of different oral reading levels employ different strategies? Reading observations and prompts to the participants during and after reading were employed to capture the participants' strategy use. This study found that the participants most frequently used text editing strategies during oral reading. In addition, there were differences among readers of different reading levels. Efficient readers were better able to use a variety of strategies to facilitate reading, while less efficient readers often asked for help and blindly guessed the meanings and pronunciations of characters in the reading.

In this article, we examine the ways digital spaces have shaped and affected how we produce and consume theatre during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case study in question consists of a retrospective analysis of the translation into Brazilian Portuguese, rehearsal process, and live digital rehearsed reading via Google Meet of Northern Irish Christina Reid's play "My Name, Shall I Tell You My Name?" ([1989] 1997). By reflecting on how digital technologies have been used as creative tools in theatre-making, we consider how the medium itself has affected the reception of the play by a small contemporary Brazilian audience.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness for L2 English learners of a new direct approach to segmental pronunciation instruction that combined articulatory instruction with abdominal enhancement techniques. The participants were Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong, where the school curriculum relies chiefly on indirect instruction within a task-based language teaching (TBLT) framework. Thus a second purpose of the study was to examine whether the direct approach may be a useful addition to the Hong Kong curriculum. Randomly-assigned experimental and comparison groups of recent school graduates completed pronunciation tasks embedded within a TBLT framework. However, the experimental group had direct attention drawn to the segmental sounds, including advice and feedback on how to produce them, while the comparison group did not. Both groups completed a pretest/posttest reading-aloud task. The segments targeted in this test (and in the instruction) involved selected long vowel/diphthong sounds, voiced fricative consonants, and /t/ and /d/ in syllable-final consonant clusters. Results showed the experimental group significantly outperformed the comparison group overall and in each of these segmental categories, highlighting the importance of the direct articulatory-abdominal instruction. The results also suggested such instruction should be given greater attention in the Hong Kong curriculum.