Reading strategies are consciously controlled actions learners execute in order to aid comprehension. The effectiveness of strategies is increased with metacognitive awareness. Researchers have created instruments to raise metacognitive awareness targeted for native and highly proficient L2 readers. This article outlines the creation of a new survey, the Contextualized Inventory of Metacognitive Awareness for novice to low-intermediate L2 readers. Unlike other instruments, this survey contextualizes pre-, during-, and post-reading strategy deployment with the use of simplified, narrative reading passages. The survey was piloted at an Intensive English Program with 88 subjects. The overall readability of the survey had a Lexile score of 350L and a Coh-Metrix score of 35. The initial reliability of the survey was .69. Pedagogical uses and academic implications of the new survey are discussed.

The questions asked in this empirical study is how teachers and students prefer to work with reading projects. It is asked which method they prefer to work with. 28 student informants have participated in the study that contained two questionnaires and a smaller reading project. They read two texts using two different approaches: one reading with no instructions other than to read the text and another reading with more thorough pre-, during, and post-reading assignments, such as discussions before and during the reading and a final individual written summary after the text was read. The results of the study showed that the majority of informants stated that they prefer more thorough pre-, during- and post-reading work in order to feel confident about their comprehension of what they have read. In addition, four teachers were interviewed for this study, and they all agree that literature in their classroom is important from several aspects. For example, they see greater vocabulary growth and more relaxed students when the students are reading. All four teachers use different strategies. Two of them focus on the pre-reading, one on the during-reading strategy while one works more with the post-reading strategy. What they all have in common is that they work regularly with reading and it is a big part of their lives outside of work as well and that is something they hope to pass on to their students, the freedom and joy of reading. This study discovered that a teacher must be willing to create reading projects that involve a lot of preparation and student discussions in order to increase their students’ reading comprehension.

In a Title I school located in a southeastern state, 60% of 3rd grade students are reading below grade level. The state's new reading initiative ties grade promotion to 3rd grade students reading on grade level. At the study site, administrators identified audio books as a possibly helpful reading tool. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development theory, which holds that learners can learn new skills more readily with guided assistance, framed this study. The purpose of this quantitative, comparative design study was to explore the associations between the use of audio books and the reading levels of 3rd grade struggling readers. Research questions were used to compare the reading levels of struggling readers who use audio books with the reading levels of: (a) struggling readers reading silently, (b) at or above grade level readers who read with audio books, and (c) at or above grade level readers who read silently. Two 3rd grade classes were selected, with 25 students using audio books and 25 students reading silently, to participate in this project. Scores from the AR and from the pre- and posttest STAR assessments over a 9-week period were analyzed and compared using an independent samples t test to explore associations between the use of audio books and the comprehension and reading levels of the participants. Analysis of the results showed that the use of audiobooks was not significantly related to increased reading or comprehension levels for struggling readers. Significant improvements in reading comprehension were shown for students reading at or above grade level that read silently or used audio books. Based on the findings, a professional development project for teachers providing research-supported reading strategy instruction was developed. The findings may lead to improvements in instructional practices by encouraging the use of research-based reading strategies, which could promote positive social change by supporting greater academic success for elementary students through improved reading comprehension.

<p>Being a skilled reader makes it easier to learn a new language. It is important to teach students how the knowledge and use of reading strategies can facilitate learning. This study was made in a Swedish fourth grade class with eighteen participant pupils. They were asked to translate two texts from English into Swedish: one was a poem with nonsense words, and the other a prose text. The texts were taken from <em>Through the Looking Glass</em> by Lewis Carroll and <em>The Garbage King</em> by Elizabeth Laird. After this an interview was made with all of the pupils in pairs, where they were asked about their reading strategies normally and in this situation. The results found were that the reading strategies used were: <em>likeness with their native language</em>, <em>previous vocabulary knowledge of the L2</em>, <em>syntactic knowledge</em>,<em> </em>and<em> guessing the meaning through the context</em>. The result confirms previous research in that the pupils who liked reading and did so in their spare time, did better when it came to making syntactically correct translations.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

The aims of this thesis were to examine the utilisation of various linguistic levels in the oral reading of running texts among Swedish beginning readers, and specifically to question the supposedly predominant role of lower (i.e. sub-lexical) linguistic levels by also examining possible evidence of the utilisation of information at the syntactic or semantic levels, as well as textual context. The investigation is based on a corpus constructed from the oral reading of running texts and includes a number of studies using both quantitative and qualitative error analyses. The analyses confirm that other linguistic levels than the sub-lexical have an impact on reading. This was shown both in the linguistic acceptability of errors and the extent to which errors were corrected depending on linguistic acceptability. Although the natural point of departure seemed to be the graphemic level, analyses revealed that graphemic complexity or word transparency alone could not explain error frequencies. In quite a few cases, qualitative analyses revealed, for instance, that higher linguistic levels or knowledge of the world could explain both why words did and did not result in reading errors. However, phonological quantity appeared to be a major difficulty throughout the study, which is clearly related to the graphemic or phonological level. Some differences regarding the developmental perspective were observed. One study indicated that the readers might develop stepwise regarding their utilisation of various linguistic levels, in the sense that they appeared to rely mainly on lower linguistic levels early in reading development. Later they seemed to be dependent on higher linguistic levels, and ultimately they seemed to be sensitive to, rather than dependent on, higher linguistic levels. An interesting result was that the readers seemed to use different strategies for different kinds of words throughout the investigation, using a direct decoding strategy for frequent words, but using a letter-by-letter decoding strategy for less frequent or graphemically complex words.

本研究旨在探討利用SQ3R閱讀策略應用在閱讀教學活動，對國小四年級學生閱讀理解能力及語文表達能力的影響，並根據研究結果提出閱讀教師對於學童閱讀策略教學之改善建議，提供國小教師日後進行閱讀教學之參考。 本研究採準實驗研究法、觀察法、問卷分析法及訪談法，以兩班國小四年級學生為研究對象，一班為接受SQ3R閱讀策略教學之實驗組學生，一班為接受傳統閱讀教學之控制組學生，兩班學生皆由研究者採用「閱讀理解-文章與試題範例」一書及PIRLS閱讀理解試題範例中擇取其中三篇文章為教材，進行為期十週共二十堂之實驗教學課程，在教學前後，對研究對象實施前測、後測、延後測，藉以了解學生閱讀理解能力是否有顯著的差異。 依據資料分析與研究結果，歸納出以下結論： 一、 運用「SQ3R閱讀策略」教學對國小四年級學生閱讀理解能力有顯著的影響。 二、 運用「SQ3R閱讀策略」教學對國小四年級高程度與中程度閱讀理解能力學生的閱讀理解能力有顯著的影響。 三、 運用「SQ3R閱讀策略」教學後，學生語文理解、運用及表達能力有顯著的進步。 最後，根據研究結果，提出對國小老師進行閱讀教學及未來研究之建議。 / The purpose of this study attempted to realize the impacts on reading comprehension and language expression for the fourth grade students of elementary school by using SQ3R reading strategies. According to the results, the suggestions were proposed as the reference for improving reading instruction strategies for elementary school teachers. This study used a quasi-experimental research method for observation the variations of reading comprehension on fourth grade students,The questionnaires and depth interview methods were pursued for a systematic realization of opinions from the students. In this study two classes were random sampling for survey A class of experimental group students accepted SQ3R reading strategy instruction, the other class students accepted the traditional teaching (control group). This study proceeded 10-weeks and chose 3 articles as prior-test, post-test, and delay test for analyzing the progress of students. The articles were chose from "Reading comprehension - articles and sample questions" and “PIRLS reading comprehension question examples”. The results were summarized as follows: 1. Reading comprehension of fourth grade students had a significant advancement under SQ3R reading strategies teaching. 2. SQ3R reading strategies teaching for improving reading comprehension were significant difference between high and low level students. 3. Reading comprehension, vocabulary usage, and language expression of testing students had significant progress under “SQ3R reading strategies teaching”.

Fifty-seven pre-fourth-graders from 14 private schools participated to determine (a) if teaching text structure with annotation produced higher comprehension scores than the method of teaching vocabulary, and (b) if the effect of instructional method on reading comprehension was the same for male and female students. Effects were measured by immediate posttest and follow-up test NCE scores of the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test, Fourth Edition (SDRT4) containing components of Comprehension and Vocabulary. The design was a true experiment using a matched comparison-group format. Participants were placed in one of two independent 3-week reading workshop sessions, then randomly assigned to one of two conditions: (a) finding text structure when reading expository text and annotating (TSA group), and (b) extending vocabulary knowledge (VK group). The second session duplicated the first with different participants. Each group received five two-hour lessons.The hypothesis was t hat scores on the immediate posttest and follow-up test (two months later) on the Comprehension component of the SDRT4 would be higher for pre-fourth-graders in the TSA than in the VK group. The hypothesis was not supported by results of a two 2 (Method) X 2 (Gender) analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with the pretest as the covariate. Analyses indicated:1. Reading comprehension and vocabulary scores on the immediate posttest and the follow-up test were not statistically significantly higher for TSA compared to VK students.2. Females scored significantly higher on the Vocabulary and Comprehension posttest.3. The interaction of Method X Gender was statistically significant on the Vocabulary follow-up test, males benefiting more from vocabulary instruction. Implications suggest: (a) teacher education courses address gender learning differences and schools should examine curricula for male- and female-friendly standards; (b) this study's vocabulary method of instruction inspired children to use new words in speaking and writing; and (c) identifying text structure and annotating are developmental, maturational skills. Maturity level and gender differences in learning raise questions: At what grade level should text structure with annotation be implemented? How can this method be taught to accommodate gender learning differences?

The aim of this study has been to get a better knowledge and understanding of the way teachers are working with reading comprehension in the grades 1 and 2, which was done through description of 5 teachers way of working. The theoretical basis of this study grounds in the sociocultural perspective. I based my study on Vygotsky’s theory which claims that strategies transferred from adults to children through social interaction get internalised and then used independently. I have also made use of several theories that specifically deal with reading comprehension that allowed me to identify this area of teaching as a complex one, consisting of several elements. In order to understand a text on a deeper level a reader has to be able to infer, or read between the lines. In order to be able to develop their comprehension to this level pupils need to be educated in that. Methodologically this is a qualitative study based on interviews with five teachers, three of them work as teachers at the elementary school, and two – as teachers for pupils with special needs. All of the respondents work in three different schools in Stockholm area. The result of this study shows that almost all of the teachers interviewed work with different elements that reading comprehension consists of. Only one teacher works actively to give pupils an idea of reading comprehension on a deeper level.

In this qualitative study based on constructivist learning theory, nine intermediate level university students of German were observed as they read foreign language texts on the Internet. Through observations, as well as think-aloud protocols and semi-structured interviews, the study identified Internet reading strategies the students used, and determined the difficulties they encountered in Internet reading activities. The observed strategies were related to four different types of reading tasks the students had to complete and to the language levels of the students. The four task types included: (a) scanning for specific information, (b) skimming and summary writing, (c) detailed reading and text comparison, and (d) observing linguistic phenomena in a text. The research questions arose from the observation that, while the Internet has a positive influence on motivation, independent learning and cultural understanding (Alm-Lequeux, 2001; Brandl, 2002; Chapelle, 2000; Lee, 1997), the literature also talks of frustration on the part of the students, and of students being overwhelmed by foreign language Internet pages (Kubota, 1999; Rüschoff & Wolff, 1999; Shetzer & Warschauer, 2000). This frustration is hypothesized to be due to the fact that Internet texts are authentic texts written for readers in the target culture, and have not been adjusted to the linguistic and cultural knowledge level of foreign language students. There is still little empirical research on the specific ways students deal with these difficulties while completing Internet reading tasks. The present study was carried out with the aim of shedding light on the Internet reading process for pedagogical purposes. The think-aloud technique of data collection permitted a deeper understanding and a more precise description of this special type of reading than would have been possible with interviews alone. The data analysis revealed eight key factors playing a role in foreign language Internet reading: course performance level, background knowledge, motivation, strategic reading, computer skills, problem-solving style, hypertext structure, and type of task. These factors lead to pedagogical implications for designing suitable Internet tasks for foreign language students, and for scaffolding the foreign language Internet reading process.