The purpose of this study was to determine if aphasic patients have significantly more correct answers for telegraphically written material when compared to normally written material. Twenty subjects from the greater Portland metropolitan area were selected to be included in this study. The ages or the subjects ranged from forty-two through sixty-five years with a mean of fifty-four years. The test material consisted of two paragraphs controlled for fourth grade grammar and vocabulary and two paragraphs controlled for sixth grade grammar and vocabulary. A normally written and a telegraphically written paragraph were used for each of the four paragraphs for a total of eight test paragraphs. The results or this study revealed no statistically significant difference for the magnitude of correct answers for the telegraphically written material; however, a significant number of subjects gave more correct answers for the telegraphic material at both the fourth and sixth grade levels. These results demonstrate that it is easier for some aphasic patients to comprehend telegraphically written material than normally written material. Therefore, telegraphically written material may be of value for patients with aphasia who are relearning to read. This type of material may also be used for recreational reading when requested by aphasic patients.

This study investigates reading comprehension strategies amongst 298 Swedish ESL students in upper-secondary school, possible relationships between high motivation to learn and high strategy use, and whether more experienced readers tend to use reading strategies more frequently than lesser experienced readers. Data was collected through online surveys, and the findings were analysed using quantitative analysis. The results of the study showed that experienced readers tend to use reading strategies more often than less experienced readers, but that the most employed strategies amongst students seem to be naturally occurring rather than metacognitive and self-regulated ones, indicating that the participating Swedish upper-secondary students lack sufficient knowledge of other reading strategies. The data regarding the possible relationships between high levels of motivation and a more varied use of reading strategies do not indicate a strong correlation. One possible conclusion of the study is that even if students seem to perceive themselves as strategy users, the strategies deemed most important by researchers still end up amongst the least used strategies, indicating that students still need to receive more explicit training in the use and functions of such strategies.

Previous research provides support for the use of Readers Theater as a way to teach literacy and improve reading comprehension. Readers Theater involves listening to a story, engaging in repeated readings of the story, and performing the story using vocal intonation, reading rate, facial expressions, and body movements to accurately portray the meaning of each line. An empirical demonstration of the effect of Readers Theater on reader self-efficacy has yet to occur. Further, previous research rarely evaluated the magnitude of improvements associated with Readers Theater with the magnitude of improvements associated with maturation and traditional classroom instruction. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of a Readers Theater intervention on improving reading comprehension and reader self-efficacy in elementary students, beyond that related to maturation or traditional classroom instruction. It was expected that participants receiving the Readers Theater intervention would exhibit greater improvements in reading comprehension and reader self-efficacy when compared to a control group. It was also anticipated that when the second group received the intervention, the findings would be replicated. Participants were 24 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Results support the use of Readers Theater as a supplemental technique for reading instruction. Participants displayed some improvements in reading comprehension and various aspects of reader self-efficacy. Further research is needed to extend the findings to a larger population and refine techniques to maximize benefits.

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Reading approaches in Japan and other EFL settings have typically focused on accuracy at the expense of fluency. However, reading rate and fluency are important components of reading that are currently being neglected. A review of the literature reveals growing interest in investigating the effectiveness of reading rate and fluency enhancement approaches such as extensive reading (ER), speed reading, and oral fluency training. Results of previous research indicate the effectiveness of these approaches for increasing reading speed and fluency as well as comprehension, but the overall body of evidence in this area remains weak, particularly in EFL contexts.With these gaps in mind, the purposes of this study were to investigate the effectiveness of the ER approach in developing reading fluency, investigate appropriate ways to measure reading fluency in adult EFL readers, investigate whether reading fluency increases are accompanied by reading comprehension increases, and identify the patterns of reading rate development that occur during an ER course. To this end, a longitudinal quasi-experimental study was conducted with 77 first-year students at a nursing college in Japan, all of whom participated in one 15-week semester of ER with an added fluency training component (ERFT) and one 15-week semester of intensive reading (IR). Silent reading rate, oral reading rate and fluency, reading comprehension, and written receptive vocabulary size were measured at the beginning and end of both semesters. Silent reading rate, oral reading rate, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension were measured using both simplified and authentic texts. Approximately half of the students took ERFT in the first semester and IR in the second semester, and the other half did the opposite, so analyses were conducted separately for these two groups. Repeated-measures ANOVAs showed that for the IR-before-ERFT group, oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for the ERFT treatment (9.79 wcpm) than the IR treatment (3.05 wcpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for the IR treatment (8.26 wpm) than the ERFT treatment (-2.86 wpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts; and oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (15.18 wcpm) than IR (4.37 wcpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts. For the ERFT-before-IR group, silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (19.22 wpm) than IR (-2.50 wpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (12.55 wcpm) than IR (4.81 wcpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (21.86 wpm) than IR (-7.64 wpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts; and oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for IR (13.06 wcpm) than ERFT (6.70 wcpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts. Repeated-measures ANOVAs also showed that for the IR-before-ERFT group, reading comprehension increase for authentic texts was significantly greater for IR (1.00 logits) than ERFT (.17 logits) (p = .010); and vocabulary size increase was significantly greater for IR (.36 logits) than ERFT (-.19 logits) (p = .001). For the ERFT-before-IR group, reading comprehension increase for authentic texts was significantly greater for ERFT (1.05 logits) than IR (.11 logits) (p = .003); and vocabulary size increase was significantly greater for ERFT (.44 logits) than IR (-.07 logits) (p = .001). No significant correlations were found between changes in any of the reading rate and fluency measures (silent reading rate, oral reading rate, and oral reading fluency) and reading comprehension change. For the ERFT-before-IR group, analysis revealed a significant and moderately high negative correlation (r = -.422) between initial silent reading rate and silent reading rate change (on simplified texts) during the ERFT treatment. Analysis of individual students’ silent reading rate change patterns during the ERFT semester revealed a jagged increase to be the most common (22/77; 28.57%) pattern of rate increase. These results add to a growing body of evidence that ERFT yields greater reading fluency gains than IR, suggest that both ERFT and IR contribute to reading comprehension and vocabulary size gains, suggest that ERFT yields greater reading fluency gains among students with initially slower reading rates, and provide insight into how individual’s reading rate changes over the course of a semester of ERFT. / Teaching & Learning

The aim of the study is to generate knowledge about what students in years 4 and 5 (9-12 years old) need to discern in order to draw conclusions about a protagonist’s character traits in a fictional text, and how this ability can be developed. The method chosen to answer the research questions is Learning Study, an iterative classroom-based approach. Two primary school teachers in Swedish and the teacher researcher worked together. They collaborated to design, teach, evaluate, refine, and analyse a series of six lessons in a cyclic process with the Variation Theory as theoretical framework. The empirical data consists of pre- and post-lesson assessments, and video recordings of the lessons. The analyses resulted in five qualitatively different categories and four critical aspects. It is suggested that in order for the student to develop the ability to draw conclusions about a protagonist’s character traits, it is critical: (a) to discern that the protagonist’s character traits, both reproduced (explicit) and implied (implicit), are based in the text, (b) to discern, in the text, descriptions of how a protagonist for example acts, reacts, feels, thinks, and interacts with other characters in the story, as this could facilitate drawing conclusions about the protagonist’s (implicit) character traits, (c) to experience that when conclusions about the protagonist’s (implicit) character traits are related to how a protagonist acts, it is possible to discern what in the text the conclusion is based on, and (d) to experience that conclusions about aprotagonist’s (implicit) character traits can be discerned when they are linked to a character/person who is outside the story (eg in another story, film, or in real life).

The purpose of this study was to determine if the addition of music and sound effects to recorded stories increased the comprehension and retention of information for fourth grade students. The data were analyzed by a two-factor analysis of variance, with repeated measures for both comprehension and retention tests, for the total population. Each reading level group was analyzed separately by an analysis of variance. Of eight hypotheses tested, six showed a significant difference. The conclusions drawn from this study indicated that the addition of music and sound effects 1) Increases the listening comprehension and retention of fourth grade students; 2) Is more effective for retention for students with a high reading level; and 3) Is more effective for initial listening comprehension for students with low reading level but the effect is not significant for retention.

This study examined correlations between assessed intelligence and two major categories of reading comprehension: literal-explicit and inferential-implicit. In addition, efficiency of prediction for criterion variables was investigated by utilizing two regression models which incorporated intelligence scores squared and the square root of intelligence scores. Since it is generally accepted that the higher the assessed intelligence of an individual, the higher will be his achievement in all areas of reading comprehension, the present study sought to discover whether there was a curvilinear relationship between intelligence and the two categories of reading comprehension with the factor of intelligence statistically controlled. It was felt that the hypothesized curvilinear relationship would result in significantly better performance by brighter students on inferential questions and significantly better performance by less-bright students on literal questions. Although no cause and effect has been established, based on the data presented in this study and within the. limitations of this study, the following conclusions seem tenable. 1. Since reading comprehension may be viewed as a thinking process, it is important to note that a relationship exists between the assessed intelligence of an individual and his performance on both literal and inferential tests of that process. 2. This study has demonstrated the curvilinear nature of the relationships hypothesized. The higher the assessed intelligence of an individual, the increasingly higher will be his performance on inferential questions. Brighter students tend to make more inferences, but they lose some detail in the process. The less bright students, on the other hand, do very well with detail questions but experience less success in making inferences concerning what is read.

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