Reading may be viewed as an invisible skill, and some may even consider it a passive skill. However, reading is an active and complex skill. It requires one to use a wide range of skills simultaneously to achieve fluency. Hence, it is crucial to learn and use strategies to master such a complex skill. Today, research states that fluent reading includes using top-down and bottom-up strategies, or an interactive approach, to truly become a fluent reader. In fact, research has shown the effects that all three models have had on students. More specifically, L1 studies have shown positive effects in using phonics instruction (a type of bottom-up model) on students' reading fluency. Although this is true, there has been little research in L2 settings that investigates the effects that phonics instruction has had on L2 learners. It seems that L2 reading curricula focus on teaching top-down strategies in hopes that students implicitly learn bottom-up strategies. In reality, students may need to experience a transitional phase where they explicitly learn phonics and how to decode words in order to become fluent readers. The current study seeks to explore whether implementing extended explicit systematic phonics instruction in an L2 setting facilitates reading fluency. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate whether extended explicit systematic phonics instruction would affect L2 students' reading fluency in terms of decoding, reading rate and comprehension. Two groups of students participated in this study; an experimental group who received extended explicit systematic phonics instruction and a control group who did not receive the treatment. Two types of exams were administered. One exam indicated that phonics instruction helped students read words accurately, but the second exam illustrated that phonics instruction did not make a difference in decoding, reading rate and comprehension. These results suggest further exploration on the topic.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that there is a reciprocal relationship between comprehension and fluency during reading. The notion that oral reading fluency can facilitate reading comprehension is well established in the research literature on the development of reading comprehension. However, more recent models have questioned the unidirectionality of this relationship and have suggested that reading comprehension may increase fluency through reading rate. This hypothesis was examined via analyses of second grade students' oral reading of connected texts. Four previewing conditions which isolated lexical effects, comprehension effects, and prosody effects on oral reading fluency were manipulated in an experiment and the effects on students' passage reading times and prosody were evaluated. Students who were on-level readers were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions consisting of word preview (lexical factor), listening preview (prosody and comprehension factor), summary preview (comprehension factor) and no preview. Following the preview, students were asked to read passages aloud. Analyses of Covariance were performed to test the effects of lexical priming, comprehension priming and prosodic modeling on oral reading fluency as measured in correct words per minute (CWPM) and prosodic reading, while controlling for students overall achievement in reading as measured by the STAR-R score. The results showed significant differences in CWPM favouring the listening preview and summary preview over the no-preview condition for students at lower levels of fluency performance. The results are discussed in relation to theories of reading that highlight the role of comprehension and fluency in the integration of information during reading.

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The thesis investigates reading problems among adolescents with specific learning disabilities. The theoretical part of the paper outlines theoretical fundamentals of reading problems, different approaches to specific learning disabilities, reading particularities and reading related skills among adolescents and adults. The research part of the paper comprises the analysis and interpretation of data obtained via a comparison of the reading performance of students with specific disabilities and the performance of intact student population. The main goal of the thesis is to detect basic reading characteristics among adolescents with specific learning disabilities.

Research into the effects of extensive reading (ER) in second language acquisition has surged over the past few decades. Many studies report several benefits that come from engaging in ER, including reading rate gains. However, these studies almost exclusively focus on English language learners and tend to be limited by their lack of control over how the ER treatment is conducted. Furthermore, experimental and quantitative studies that investigate the possible effects of ER on the reading skills of learners of Japanese have yet to be fully explored. The goal of this study was to investigate the possible effects of ER on the reading rate development of learners of Japanese as a foreign language. This study also aimed to examine the level of comprehension learners were able to maintain as their reading rates increased as well as the feasibility of a 12,000 character (7,200 standard word) per week reading goal. Finally, this study also surveyed learner perceptions of ER.<br><br>Using a quantitative single-case experiment design, eight intermediate-level learners of Japanese were monitored engaging in ER following strict adherence to ER principles over two and a half to four months. Longitudinal reading rate data as well as reading comprehension, ER, and survey data were collected over the course of the study. Results showed that participants’ reading rates increased significantly following the ER treatment. Furthermore, participants’ comprehension abilities were not hampered by an increase in their reading rates. Results also indicate that a weekly reading goal of 12,000 characters is likely feasible for intermediate-level learners. Finally, it was found that participants had overwhelmingly positive attitudes towards ER. This study provides evidence that ER has the potential to provide a highly enjoyable activity while substantially increasing learner reading rates without hindering comprehension.<p></p>