Research efforts to determine the needs of special populations has increased in the field of human factors. The majority of these efforts are focused on the physically disabled. Little attention has been paid to the learning disabled, and specifically, the learning disabled adult. A single factor between subject design was utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of using a voice synthesizer to increase reading comprehension levels of learning disabled adults. The independent variable was presentation mode. The Passage Comprehension subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests-Revised was presented via the computer. Subjects were required to complete the test under one of two conditions: with voice feedback or without voice feedback. Dependent measures included total correct answers and reaction time. Also, using a seven-point Likert scale, subjective data regarding various aspects of the voice synthesizer was collected. The Passage Comprehension subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised was also administered to each subject by the experimenter. Comparisons of total scores were then made between the different administration formats. Analysis of the data was conducted using ANOVAs and t-tests. Results indicated no significant differences. Such results were attributed to the small sample size, the subject's potential familiarity with the type of test administered, and compensation skills already developed and maintained by the learning disabled subject. It was concluded that additional research was needed in order to understand the effects of using a voice synthesizer to increase reading comprehension levels and in adapting training programs in industry for the learning disabled. / Master of Science

Upper elementary and middle school students can be less than engaged due to the lack of pictures in texts. Making the reading transition from picture books to complex text literature is challenging for students. Graphic novels could be a resource to improve student engagement and comprehension and support students in that transition. Students with ASD can face additional challenges with reading comprehension and instruction during school. Currently graphic novels are not used commonly for students and the goal of the research is to investigate if these types of books can be a support for students, reading comprehension and engagement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of graphic novels and system of least prompts on reading comprehension of middle school students with autism spectrum disorder. The study implemented a single case multiple probe design with four participants, conducted in a private date school. Results will be shared along with limitations and implications for future research and practice.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of dialogic reading as an intervention on participant ability to answer “wh” comprehension questions correctly and independently. Previous research conducted on dialogic reading was primarily conducted with young individuals with autism spectrum disorder, leaving a gap in the research with older age participants. Participants of this study included four students in upper elementary grades 4-6, ages 8-12 who have been identified to have a known deficit in reading comprehension, a cognitive disability, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in an attempt to further extend the research on dialogic reading as an intervention strategy. A multiple probe across participants design was used to determine efficacy of the intervention. Data collection probes were conducted during baseline, intervention, generalization, and maintenance phases to determine efficacy of the intervention on participant ability to answer “wh” comprehension questions. Results indicate an increase in participant ability to answer comprehension questions while engaging in dialogic reading lessons for two participants. Limitations and implications for future research and practice will be discussed.

The reading comprehension scores of students in secondary education have been stagnant since the collection of national statistics on reading comprehension began (National Assessment on Educational Progress [NAEP], 2015, 2017, 2019). This study explored the effect of providing dialogic and thematic support on reading comprehension and intertextuality. The theories of dialogic pedagogy (Fecho, 2011; Stewart, 2019) and cognitive flexibility in reading (Spiro et al., 1987), along with the construction-integration model of reading comprehension (Kinstch, 2004) formed the foundation for this study. The study focused on the reading comprehension and ability to make connections across texts of 184 participants enrolled in 9th or 10th grade English classes in a high school in the Appalachian region of the southeastern United States. Methods included an experimental study which required participants to participate in two rounds of testing: the Nelson Denny Reading Test to provide reading levels and the Thematically Connected Dialogic Pedagogy (TCDP) testing which introduced dialogic and thematic support for reading comprehension and intertextuality. For the TCDP testing, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Thematically Connected Texts (TC), Thematically Connected Texts with Dialogic Support (TCDS), or a Control. Results from testing were analyzed to compare performance on outcome measures for reading comprehension and ability to make connections between texts. These comparisons suggest that the interventions do not affect either outcome measure significantly, though the data highlight the need for a nuanced approach to reading intervention and the development of adolescents' ability to use textual evidence. The findings drawn from the data point to implications for English educators, teacher educators, and administrators in the areas of assisting adolescents in making meaning from texts at a level that facilitates applying that knowledge in effective ways in order for them to fully participate in social, civic, and economic matters. / Doctor of Philosophy / This quantitative study focused on the effect of reading support for adolescents centered on a dialogic pedagogy in an effort to improve reading comprehension outcomes and the ability of adolescents to make connections across texts. The study involved an experimental research design in which participants enrolled in 9th and 10th grade English classes in the southeastern United States were randomly assigned to one of three test conditions. Performance on outcome measures for reading comprehension and participant ability to make connections between texts were compared between conditions. These comparisons suggest the interventions do not affect either outcome measure significantly, though the data highlight the need for further support for adolescent readers with implications for English educators, teacher educators, and administrators in supporting adolescent reading comprehension and intertextuality to promote full social, civic, and economic participation for future generations.

Forty-five randomly selected and assigned college freshmen participated in this study designed to compare three text study strategies for their relative effectiveness (comprehension), efficiency (time), and level of awareness (confidence). The three study strategies of 1) Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review (SQ3R), 2) Question, Read, Recite (QRR) with emphasis on text structure and main idea student-generated questions, and 3) Question, Read, Question-Product (QRQ-P), designed to develop greater metacognitive awareness of the user, were compared on three criterion measures of comprehension accuracy, time to study, and confidence in answering test questions. Using multivariate analysis of covariance with reading ability as the covariate, the results favored the metacognitive QRQ-P study strategy over the SQ3R in comprehension accuracy (effectiveness), but not over the QRR. Significant differences in time to study (efficiency) were revealed in favor of QRR and SQ3R over QRQ-P. No statistically significant differences were found in confidence (level of awareness) among the three treatments. The QRQ-P was, therefore, the most effective, and QRR the most efficient; however, interpretation of the overall results favored QRR as both the most effective and efficient, since no significant differences existed between the QRR and the QRQ-P in effectiveness and since student response was more favorable toward the QRR. / Ed. D.

Literature on reading comprehension assessment advocates a multiple-measures approach over a single-test methodology in view of the cognitive and linguistic complexity of the behavior being evaluated. Relationships among multiple measures have been observed, but no study has examined the nature of relationships among categories of comprehension assessment (product-process) or has conducted an explicit test of possible patterns of association, expressed as three models of comprehension assessment, in a sample of learning disabled subjects. Therefore, the passage comprehension of 48 seventh and eighth grade males was assessed by questioning, retelling, cloze and miscue assessments followed by a correlational analysis of scores. Regression analysis examined which of the four assessments best predicted subjects' scores on a standardized test. The data did not confirm any of the three hypothesized models of comprehension assessment but subjects' comprehension appeared to be partly a function of how it was measured. Performance on the miscue assessment best predicted standardized test performance. / Ed. D.

No description available.

Läsförståelse är ett ytterst värdefullt verktyg i läsningen som varje individ behöver för att förstå ordens betydelse och för att kunna inhämta och erhålla kunskap ur det lästa. Eftersom läsförståelse är grundläggande för att varje elev ska kunna utveckla kunskaper och färdigheter i alla skolämnena är det således också en nyckel till varje elevs skolframgång. Likaså benämns det i Lgr 11 som ett mål i slutet av årskurs 3 att undervisningen ska resultera i att alla elever lär sig att läsa och förstå texter med hjälp av lässtrategier. Trots detta framkommer det i en granskning av nationella prov i svenska från de senaste fem åren att elever med svenska som andraspråk fortsätter att erhålla ett sämre resultat i läsförståelsedelarna jämfört med sina klasskamrater vars förstaspråk är svenska. Det är mot ovanstående bakgrund som denna studie upprättades. Syftet med studien är således att undersöka och beskriva hur sex lärare i F-3 arbetar för att öka läsförståelsen hos flerspråkiga elever. De frågeställningar som jag har utgått från i studien för att besvara syftet är följande: Vilka särskilda aktiviteter väljer lärarna att arbeta med i läsförståelse- undervisningen och hur arbetar lärarna med detta? Vilka faktorer anser lärarna ha en påverkan på flerspråkiga elevers läsförståelseutveckling? Sammantaget är detta en kvalitativ intervjustudie där datainsamlingen har skett genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex lärare. För att kunna tolka, förstå och beskriva lärarnas utsagor har jag utgått från den hermeneutiska tolkningsläran. Studiens resultat visar bland annat att explicit undervisning, samtal och interaktion samt användandet av figurer kopplat till lässtrategierna är fördelaktigt för flerspråkiga elever. Därtill tyder resultatet på att arbete med ordkunskapsunder- visning och olika läsaktiviteter är gynnsamt för flerspråkiga elevers läsförståelsekompetens. Slutligen har tre påverkande faktorer belysts i resultatet och dessa är flerspråkiga elevers färdigheter i sitt modersmål, deras socioekonomiska bakgrund och hemtraditioner. / Reading comprehension is an extremely valuable tool that each individual needs when it comes to reading and to understand the meaning of words and to seek and obtain knowledge. Because of the fact that reading comprehension is fundamental for every student to be able to create knowledge and skills in all school-subjects, it is therefore also the key to each student’s success in school. It’s also mentioned in Lgr 11, as an aim for all students by the end of grade 3, that the teaching should result in that all students learn how to read and to understand texts with support from reading strategies. In addition, it appears in a review of national tests in Swedish from the past five years that students with Swedish as a second language continue to obtain a poorer performance in the reading comprehensions sections compared to their peers whose first language is Swedish. Therefore the purpose of this study is to investigate and to describe how six teachers in grades F-3 work in their reading comprehension instructions for multilingual students. To be able to answer the purpose of the study the following research question were formulated: Which specific activities do the teachers chose to work with in their reading comprehension instructions and how to the teachers work with this? Which factors do the teachers believe could have an impact on multilingual students’ development in reading comprehension? Overall this is a qualitative interview-study where data has been obtained through semi-structured interviews with six teachers. To be able to interpret, understand and describe the statements from the teachers I have taken inspiration from the hermeneutic interpretation doctrine. The results of this study shows that explicit teaching, conversation and interaction and also the use of figures linked to reading strategies are advantageous for multilingual students. Furthermore, results indicate that work with vocabulary instructions and different reading activities are favorable for multilingual students’ reading comprehension skills. Other factors that have been highlighted in the results are multilingual students’ skills in their native language, their socio-economic background and traditions at home.

The aim of this study is to investigate how teachers working in grades 1–3 of secondary school think that reading comprehension should be taught so that the pupils will be able to reach the learning goals in grade 3. The study applies a qualitative method whereby three teachers who worked in the early years of school each took part in a semi- structured interview. An interview guide was used as a data collection instrument and the interviews were documented by audio recording. Collected data were then analysed for meaning content with a phenomenographic approach. The result shows that the most common perception of the concept of reading comprehension is the ability to read between the lines and to retell a text in one’s own words. The view of reading comprehension was also seen to affect the way the teaching is done, and a shared view was found in the way of talking about different texts and asking questions to give the pupils practice in metacognition while reading. The result also shows that the teachers’ differing educational background influences the methods they use when training reading strategies, and the view of reading comprehension also affects how they think assessment should be done.

Studien behandlar hur fem lärare beskriver sin läsförståelseundervisning. Sveriges resultat i PISA (2015) visar att läsförståelsen går att utveckla. För att öka PISA-resultaten krävs det att svenska lärares kompetens inom läsförståelse stärks. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur fem lärare på mellanstadiet beskriver sitt arbete med läsförståelse i sin undervisning.  Studien utgår ifrån den sociokulturella teorin, vilket innebär att lärande uppstår i en social kontext. Metoden för studien är kvalitativ, där semistrukturerade intervjuer valts för insamling av data. Resultatet av studien visar att de intervjuade lärarna beskriver att de arbetar på ett strukturerat sätt. Genomgående för deras undervisning är arbetet med läsförståelsestrategier och textsamtal. Genom en sådan strukturerad undervisning utvecklar elever sin kognitiva förmåga när det kommer till läsförståelse. Deltagarna eftersträvar en bättre samverkan på skolorna för att stärka sin kompetens. / This study deal with how five teachers describe their teaching of reading comprehension. Sweden’s result in PISA (2015) indicate that Sweden’s  results in reading comprehension can be improved. To improve future results, teachers’ competence in the subject must be enhanced. The purpose of the study is to investigate how five middle-school teachers describe their teaching approach regarding reading comprehension. The study is based on the sociocultural theory, which argues that learning occurs in social contexts. The method is qualitative, and data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The result shows that the teachers, in general, had a structural approach and all participants used reading comprehension strategies and text conversations. Using the structural approach in teaching, student’s develop the cognitive ability in reading comprehension. The participants strive for more collaborations at the schools to further strengthen their competence