The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of background knowledge on Thai teachers-college students' reading comprehension in relation to topic familiarity, reading ability in English as a Foreign Language, and the amount of time required for reading familiar and unfamiliar passages.

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This study aims at generating an understanding of today’s reading education concerning reading comprehension and reading strategies. Taking previous research as the point of departure, the study examines how reading education takes place in grades 4-6 from a teacher perspective. The study examines teachers’ views on reading development and reading comprehension, how teachers work with reading comprehension and reading strategies and also which problems they see with this teaching. The study’s empirical material consists of qualitative interviews and classroom observations and the teacher participants come from different generations of teachers and from two different schools. The study shows that all teachers look upon reading development and reading comprehension as an important and crucial part of their pupils’ future education and lives in society at large. The study also shows that the teachers are working continuously with reading comprehension and reading strategies in their teaching, but that they lack some knowledge in how to highlight the various reading comprehension processes that are crucial to the development of the pupils’ reading comprehension. In the study, the teachers also indicate some difficulties regarding this teaching and its development in practice. / Denna studie syftar till att generera en uppfattning om dagens läsundervisning beträffande läsförståelse och lässtrategier. Med utgångspunkt i tidigare forskning undersöker studien hur läsundervisning kan gestalta sig i årkurs 4-6 ur ett lärarperspektiv. Studien undersöker lärares syn på läsutveckling och läsförståelse, hur lärare arbetar med läsförståelse och lässtrategier samt vilka svårigheter de ser med denna undervisning. Studiens empiriska material utgörs av kvalitativa intervjuer samt klassrumsobservationer. Lärarna som deltagit tillhör skilda generationer som har varit verksamma som lärare olika länge samt arbetar på två olika skolor. Studien visar att samtliga deltagande lärare betraktar läsutveckling och läsförståelse som en både viktig och avgörande del för elevernas fortsatta skolgång och samhällsliv. Studien visar också att lärarna arbetar kontinuerligt med läsförståelse och lässtrategier i undervisningen men att de delvis saknar kunskap om hur de ska kunna synliggöra de olika läsförståelseprocesserna för eleverna, som i förlängningen är avgörande för utvecklingen av deras läsförståelse. I studien framkom det även att lärarna upplevde vissa svårigheter med denna undervisning och med dess utformning i praktiken.

This dissertation aimed to achieve two goals. First, it investigated the effectiveness of a Web-Based Reading Instruction Program to teach reading strategies to college-level ESL students. In particular, this study examined how such a program may help ESL students learn and practice reading strategies, and develop the academic reading skills, as well as the necessary skills to interpret literary works they are exposed to in their freshman composition courses, in order to improve their overall reading comprehension, strategy use, and reading efficiency. Second, it explored the potentials and limitations of using a web-based program for teaching reading strategies. The subjects of this study were 22 ESL adult university learners enrolled in a freshman composition course at the University of Arizona. The results of the Nelson-Denny Standardized Reading Test and the Reading Comprehension Tasks used to measure students overall reading comprehension or reading proficiency show significant differences before and after instruction. Significant differences were also found between pre- and post-treatment measures of the scores on the Reading Strategy Inventory indicating that as reading comprehension improved, strategy use was also affected in that students perceived themselves as using strategies more frequently following strategy instruction. Significant differences were found in the cognitive, memory, and affective areas of reading strategies. Qualitative analysis of the students' responses on the Reading Comprehension Tasks in terms of patterns of strategy use revealed that students used cognitive, compensation, memory, metacognitive, and textual strategies more frequently after strategy instruction. Responses on these tasks after instruction also demonstrated a greater understanding of the texts and textual features. These results render strong support for the relationship between reading comprehension and strategy use. As reading comprehension improves, students use more strategies, more effectively, and more frequently. Results of the Nelson Denny Standardized Reading Test, Reading Comprehension Tasks, and Reading Strategy inventory, indicate that computer-assisted strategy training in general and task specific strategies has positive effects on the reading comprehension of ESL learners. Finally, the students' responses to a post-survey questionnaire were generally positive, indicating the beneficial effects of computer-assisted strategy training in the area of reading.

Reading researchers agree that content literacy strategies are beneficial in helping students learn. However, teachers remain resistant to teaching the strategies. Additionally, many students, even at the college level, lack the learning strategies necessary to experience academic success. This study sought to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of content literacy strategy instruction. The research questions that guided the study addressed the benefits, obstacles, and support and experiences needed to sustain the use of the strategies over time. Multiple data sources were used to investigate teachers' and students' perceptions of the research questions. The main benefit found was increased student understanding and learning of content; additional benefits included increased instructional repertoire, increased student engagement in class, and improved learner independence. Most of the obstacles documented in the literature were supported in the study; however, the obstacle of time was noted most frequently. Teacher confidence was observed by the researcher as an obstacle. The majority of participants indicated they would continue using the strategies learned during the study in the future. Students noted the support needed to sustain content literacy strategy use depended on teachers providing direct instruction, practice using the strategies, and personal success with the strategies. Teachers also identified practice and perseverance as critical to sustaining content literacy strategy instruction. The support teachers noted most frequently as important to successful implementation was collegial support - teachers helping teachers. Teacher meetings discussing the implementation process were viewed as critical to sustain effective content literacy strategy instruction. Additionally, quality teacher training, administrative support, and accountability were documented by teachers as important.

This study investigated the relationships among the variables of parenting stress, academic self-concept, and reading ability. The purpose of this study was to determine whether parenting stress and academic self-concept contributed to the child's reading ability. Two hypotheses were investigated in an effort to accomplish this purpose. The subjects used in this study were forty-nine children and their primary caretakers referred to The Child and Family Resource Center, The University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, during the academic years of 1994 through 1999. Subjects ranged in age from seven to eighteen years of age. Academically, the subjects ranged from first graders through eleventh graders. All subjects lived in and attended schools in Denton County or neighboring counties. Parental employment ranged from unskilled laborers to medical doctors. The participating families included biological, step, adoptive, single, and divorced families. Abidin's Parenting Stress Index was used to measure parental stress experienced by the primary caretaker. The Intellectual and School Status cluster of the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale was used to measure the child's academic self-concept and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised provided a measure of the child's reading ability. Test scores were obtained following a review of The Child and Family Resource Center's documented files. Multiple regression statistics revealed no significant relationship between neither parenting stress and the child's reading ability nor the child's academic self-concept and reading ability. Standardized beta coefficients and bivariate correlation results indicated a relationship between academic self-concept and reading ability. Additional research is recommended for future research that encompasses a larger and more diverse sample.

M.A. (Applied Linguistics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the interactions that take place during a reading apprenticeship which facilitate the learning of reading strategies by adolescent students who are at the middle school level and are still at-risk for reading failure and to investigate how a reading apprenticeship affects reading achievement in the areas of fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension, and the self-perception of the reader. The case study was descriptive and interpretive in nature, and examined two students, each of whom was part of a one-to-one reading apprenticeship. The researcher served as participant observer in both cases and was the teacher in each of the one-to-one reading apprenticeships. The primary data set was qualitative in nature, and elements of quantitative data were also considered. Sessions included pretesting and posttesting using the Classroom Assessment of Reading Processes (Swearingen & Allen, 1997), reading from narrative or expository books, working with words, writing, and dialoguing about the reading. Reading strategies were directly taught, modeled, and reinforced by the teacher/researcher with the goal of the students internalizing the strategies and improving their reading in the areas of fluency, vocabulary development, and comprehension, as well as improving their attitudes toward reading and their self-perception about their reading ability. This study described a reading apprenticeship which positively impacted reading achievement for two students in the areas of fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary development, as well as influencing their motivation for reading and their self-perceptions as readers. The environment of the reading apprenticeship, the dialogue that occurred throughout the reading apprenticeship, and strategy instruction, modeling, and reinforcement were found to be factors and interactions which facilitated learning during this intervention.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:46:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marilia Maira Brisolla.pdf: 5754474 bytes, checksum: f999fdd13fc68f6813b502e8f4d4133a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-06 / Much has been studied about the issues surrounding the teaching of reading at school, especially within the Portuguese classes. This consideration is the result of many results system assessments such as PISA (Programa Internacional de Avaliação de Estudantes), which feature the gap in reading proficiency. Motivated by the critical situation of the current public education, in a general way, this study proposes to make a historical research on the teaching of reading in Brazil from the perspective of the discipline of Portuguese Language within the historical period of the 1960s to the end 1990s, using the textbook as its historical document. For this, we constructed the chapters within the three principles of Koener (KOERNER 1995 apud BATISTA, 2013, p. 75): contextualization, immanence and adequacy. The first one refers to the historical context in which the Portuguese language course and the textbook were inserted; the second discusses the process in which the linguistic sciences were developed in Brazil and the influence they had exerted on the teaching of reading; the latter aims to analyze the textbooks in their time context, considering both the historical context and the current scientific development. So the purpose of this research is to assess how the process of reading instruction has been developing over these four decades that were marked by the democratization of education. In the collation of the textbooks analyzed, it can be observed that the reading teaching practices that were adopted by each material were gradually shaped by the cultural context of the society of the time, trying to establish a growing dialogue with the social environment. / Muito tem se estudado acerca das questões que envolvem ensino da leitura no espaço escolar, especialmente dentro das aulas de Língua Portuguesa. Tal reflexão é produto de inúmeros resultados de avaliações do sistema, como o PISA (Programa Internacional de Avaliação de Estudantes), que apresentam a defasagem na proficiência em leitura. Motivado pelo quadro crítico em que a educação pública se encontra, de maneira genérica, este trabalho se propôs a fazer uma pesquisa historiográfica sobre o ensino da leitura no Brasil sob a ótica da disciplina Língua Portuguesa dentro do recorte histórico da década de 1960 até o final da década de 1990, utilizando como documento histórico o livro didático. Para isso, construímos os capítulos dentro dos três princípios de Koener (KOERNER, 1995 apud BATISTA, 2013, p.75): contextualização, imanência e adequação. O primeiro faz referência ao contexto histórico em que a disciplina Língua Portuguesa e o livro didático estavam inseridos; o segundo procura analisar o processo em que as ciências linguísticas se desenvolveram no Brasil e a influência que elas exerceriam no ensino da leitura; o último propõe discutir as obras didáticas dentro do seu recorte temporal, considerando tanto o contexto histórico quanto o desenvolvimento científico vigente. Assim, o propósito desta pesquisa é avaliar como o processo do ensino da leitura foi se desenvolvendo ao longo dessas quatro décadas, marcadas pela democratização da educação. No cotejo dos livros didáticos analisados, pode-se observar que as práticas relacionadas ao ensino da leitura adotadas em cada material foram se moldando gradualmente ao contexto cultural em que sociedade se encontrava, procurando estabelecer um diálogo cada vez maior com o meio social.

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