With over 765,000 English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students studying in the United States, a greater understanding of the academic requirements and demands these students face while studying in the US is needed. Some of the biggest challenges they face include the amount of reading required and the various tasks employed with academic reading. University reading tasks require more than an understanding of the text. These tasks place a strong emphasis on text comprehension, summary, synthesis, and critical analysis. This is problematic as students, especially ESL learners, lack experience with academic tasks, and many additionally struggle with low metacognitive awareness, limited or low reading fluency, limited vocabulary, and difficulty understanding text organization. This article will present a research-informed website, A Teacher's Guide to Academic Reading, designed for teachers preparing ESL learners for the demands and difficulties of university reading. A Teacher's Guide to Academic Reading specifically informs teachers of academic reading demands and provides resources to help their learners develop fluent reading skills, critical reading skills, and general academic skills.

The aim of this degree project is to examine how three 6th grade teachers implement reading instruction in their lessons. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate how they describe their work with reading comprehension. Our investigation is based on qualitative semi- structured interviews and observations. The results indicate that teachers do not explicitly teach reading strategies. Furthermore, teachers showed an awareness of students’ interests and took them into consideration during the lessons. For instance, the teachers argued that in order to motivate students to read, they must be provided with interesting texts. The findings also showed that all teachers emphasizes vocabulary and they argue that the bigger the vocabulary is, the more effortless reading becomes.

The aim of this dissertation is to examine how teachers perceive the reading goals stated in the syllabus for English, and how they work towards the goals for year 9 that emphasize reading comprehension and reading strategies. Reading comprehension in English among students in year 9 had weakened in the period in-between the latest national survey of the Swedish school-system NU03, which was carried out in 2003, and the national survey done in 1992. The period in-between these two surveys saw the introduction of a new curriculum, a new syllabus and a new grading system. Thus questions arise about the role and status of the new syllabus, and how the teachers perceive the goals for reading and choose to work towards these. Through the use of qualitative interviews, this paper investigates how three teachers at a secondary school in the south of Sweden interpret the goals to attain, and how they work on increasing the reading comprehension and improving the reading strategies of their students.

The purpose of this study was to interpret the experiences of secondary science teachers in Florida as they address the scientific literacy of their students through teaching content reading strategies and student inquiry skills. Knowledge of the successful integration of content reading and inquiry skills by experienced classroom teachers would be useful to many educators as they plan instruction to achieve challenging state and national standards for reading as well as science. The problem was investigated using grounded theory methodology. Open-ended questions were asked in three focus groups and six individual interviews that included teachers from various Florida school districts. The constant comparative approach was used to analyze the data. Initial codes were collapsed into categories to determine the conceptual relationships among the data. From this, the five core categories were determined to be Influencers, Issues, Perceptions, Class Routines, and Future Needs. These relate to the central phenomenon, Instructional Modifications, because teachers often described pragmatic and philosophical changes in their teaching as they deliberated to meet state standards in both reading and science. Although Florida's secondary science teachers have been asked to incorporate content reading strategies into their science instruction for the past several years, there was limited evidence of using these strategies to further student understanding of scientific processes. Most teachers saw little connection between reading and inquiry, other than the fact that students must know how to read to follow directions in the lab. Scientific literacy, when it was addressed by teachers, was approached mainly through class discussions, not reading. Teachers realized that students cannot learn secondary science content unless they read science text with comprehension; therefore the focus of reading instruction was on learning science content, not scientific literacy or student inquiry. Most of the teachers were actively looking for reading materials and strategies to facilitate student understanding of science concepts, but they did not want to give up limited class time attempting methods that have not been proven to be successful in science classrooms.

The explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies has been proposed as a means to better prepare secondary school-aged students for today's information-dense, fast-paced, fast-changing global society, and to improve the academic performance of struggling adolescent readers. This proposition of a direct and positive impact of reading comprehension strategies on reading achievement for all students has not been investigated with English language learners (ELLs) who, by definition, do not possess the same level of English language skills as their native-English speaking peers. This mixed-method study investigated linguistic, cognitive, as well as affective factors that impact adolescent ELLs' performance on a standardized state reading achievement test. The quantitative portion examined the relative contributions of second language proficiency and reading comprehension strategies to a prediction model of reading achievement in 110 ninth and tenth grade ELLs. The qualitative portion of the study involved individual interviews and was aimed at deepening the understanding of ELLs' use of strategies during the standardized reading test, while also investigating affective factors that may impact their performance on this measure of academic achievement. Quantitative findings include two statistically significant prediction models of reading achievement with reading comprehension strategies and English language proficiency as predictor variables. However, only language proficiency made a significant unique contribution to the prediction variable. Qualitative findings suggest that the participants had relatively little metacognitive awareness of their comprehension during the standardized test, had overestimated their use of reading strategies as reported on a 30-item strategy survey instrument, had concentrated on sentence-level comprehension due to unknown vocabulary, and may have been hindered by testing anxiety in being able to wholly concentrate on the task. Recommendations made for the instruction of comprehension strategies consist of the raising of metacognitive awareness through the explicit modeling of the thought processes involved in reading comprehension, including determining the meaning of unknown words.

Advances in computer technology have hastened the development and dissemination of a wide range of electronic media into the workplace and educational settings. Electronic media offer many advantages, including quicker access to information and easier information sharing among professions. However, electronic reading media have still not been well integrated into these settings, especially for non-routine cognitive tasks like active reading. Conflicting results from different measures (e.g., performance, preference) have been reported regarding their efficacy. Despite the fact that there are no significant performance differences between reading from paper and reading from electronic media, people still show a preference for reading from paper and resist changes in the workplace, which often results in the abandonment of electronic reading media. Therefore, in order to maximize the potential benefits from electronic reading media, researchers and designers need more valid ways to assess the effectiveness of electronic reading media than relying on existing methods using outcome-based measures of reading. Although the act of reading is primarily a cognitive process, there are relatively few comprehensive empirical reports on how the use of different reading media impacts cognitive processes like reading strategies. Moreover, researchers have rarely considered generational differences, even though generation-specific reading practices could significantly affect readers' current reading practices using different media. Therefore, the overall objective of this research was to develop and evaluate a new method to test the effectiveness of reading medium in terms of supporting design and evaluation. Specifically, this research examined how reading strategies can be used as a process measure. The research consisted of three parts: (1) investigating readers' use of reading strategies using different types of media, (2) identifying the relationship between readers' use of reading strategies and their performance and subjective response, and (3) identifying the relationship between readers' use of reading strategies and cognitive load. Resultant findings are expected to improve how we measure the effectiveness of electronic reading media. First, readers' use of reading strategies for different types of media was examined and associated generational differences were investigated. A laboratory experiment was conducted in which three generations of participants (Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y) were asked to perform an active reading task (a simulated work-related reading task) with three types of media (paper, computer, and iPad). Readers' uses of reading strategies were identified from task observation and Retrospective Think Aloud (RTA) sessions. Quantitative analyses revealed significant differences in readers' use of reading strategies, and which depended on both the type of media and individual attributes (generation). Detailed qualitative analyses were conducted to help explain the underlying reasons for these differences in the use of reading strategies. Second, based on the identified reading strategies, the relationships between readers' use of reading strategies and their performance and subjective responses were examined. Such outcome measures have traditionally been used to assess the efficacy of different reading media. However, previous studies have generated conflicting results and did not clearly demonstrate the underlying aspects that influence readers' performance and subjective responses. The results of this study showed a clear association between readers' use of reading strategies and their performance and subjective responses. Accordingly, it was revealed that participants who used the reading strategies they developed in their formative period exhibited higher subjective responses. Third, again based on the identified reading strategies, the association between readers' use of reading strategies and cognitive load was examined. Reading from electronic media has been regarded as requiring more cognitive resources than reading from paper. However, it has not been well understood precisely which aspects of reading from different media actually influence cognitive load in terms of cognitive and metacognitive perspectives. The results reported herein showed an association between reading strategies and cognitive load. Therefore, this study revealed that the use of reading strategies was critical to their cognitive load. Overall, this research demonstrated how reading strategies could be used as process measures to assess the effectiveness of specific media for active reading activities. The way in which people interact with a text (readers' use of reading strategies) was affected by the medium, as well as by generation-specific reading practices. The extent to which reading strategies can explain reading differences was confirmed, by investigating the associations between readers' use of reading strategies and other measures. These findings can contribute to the design of reading media and help to determine the most suitable reading media for active reading activities (e.g., work-related reading activities). In addition, the findings also support the importance of culturally situated experience for non-routine cognitive activities and the use of an integrated approach that takes into account both cognitive and cultural aspects in designing human-computer interaction for non-routine cognitive activities. / Ph. D.

Syftet med litteraturstudien är att granska hur språkdidaktisk forskning lyfter fram lässtrategier samt hur lässtrategier kan gynna flerspråkiga elevers läsförståelse och läsutveckling. I studien har det analyserats forskning som inhämtats via databaser och kompletterande sökningar. Resultatet i den föreliggande studien visar att fem strategimodeller förekom mer frekvent än andra i språkdidaktisk forskning: globala, problemlösnings- och stödstrategier, Reciprocal Teaching, djup och ytlig bearbetnings-strategi, strategier för tänkande på högre nivå och social-kontextuella lässtrategier. En slutsats som kan dras är att forskning inte verkar kunna enas om någon allmän kategorisering av lässtrategier. Vi kan också konstatera att de analyserade studiernas resultat varierar i frågan om huruvida lässtrategier gynnar flerspråkiga elevers läsförståelse eller inte. Mycket tyder på att elever behöver uppnå en grundläggande språkfärdighet i andraspråket innan lässtrategier kan bli betydelsefulla. En annan slutsats som kan dras är att explicit strategiundervisning verkar krävas för att flerspråkiga elever ska utveckla lämpliga lässtrategier. Ytterligare en slutsats är att eleverna kan använda lässtrategier utan att vara medvetna om varför eller i vilket syfte strategierna används.

Title: “The letters jump”- to struggle with decoding and still understand what you are reading.Author: Maria EkUniversity of UmeåDepartment of EducationSupervisor: Asbjörg WestumExaminer: Fredrik KarlssonKeywords: Poor readers, Structured text talks, Reading strategies, Reading comprehension, Commitment and Motivation.During the past decades, Swedish studies show that reading comprehension and skills in reading strategies have decreased. In secondary school for individuals with learning disabilities there has been a focus on care-taking rather than on comprehension in general, and on reading comprehension in particular.The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Reciprocal Teaching would increase reading comprehension and motivation among upper secondary school for individuals with learning disabilities. The study presents how three 17-year-old pupils and their teacher, discussed expository fact texts during twelve lessons using the reciprocal method combined with power point-presentations to get the students to read more actively with interferences and reflections. The ambition was to make the structured text talks as interesting as possible with texts easy to read, technical aids, structure to make the students feel security when reading and to get committed pupils with an increased interest in reading.The results show an increase in motivation in reading, and the students were more prone to take an active part in discussions.

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.

There is a generally accepted reality among first and second language reading researchers and practitioners that learners who study in a second or foreign language are almost always at a disadvantage, particularly in the area of reading. In light of this learners who register for high school study each year in South Africa are very often under prepared for high school education and many of these learners also have low levels of reading ability. This has an adverse effect on their chances of academic success. In order to meet the reading needs of these learners, educators need to develop effective instructional means for teaching reading comprehension and reading strategy use. It is evident from the volume and quality of research published that the teaching of reading strategies enhances the learners' reading comprehension ability. The purpose of this study was to: • determine what reading strategies Grade 11 ESL learners use; • determine what reading strategies should be taught; • determine how and when reading strategies should be taught in the ESL classroom; • determine what the effect of an implemented reading strategy programme is on the reading comprehension of the Grade 11 ESL learners participating in this study; and • provide guidelines in terms of the composition (i.e. format, outcomes, content, teaching method 1 approach, etc.) of a reading strategy instruction programme. In this study a quasi-experimental pretest - posttest control group design was used. The participants in this study included a total of 60 Grade 11 ESL learners from a high school in the Eastern Cape. Two intact randomly selected classes participated in the study. Both males and females participated in the study and ranged in age from 18 - 22 years. The Reading Performance Test in English: Advanced Level (Roux, 1996) and a Reading Strategy Questionnaire based on the work of Oxford (1990), Pressley and Afflerbach (1995) and Pressley et al. (1995) was used in this study. A t-test was used to determine whether the mean scores of the experimental and control group differed statistically significantly from each other. Cohen's (1977) effect size d was used to determine whether the mean differences were practically significant. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: The results indicated that the learners who followed the reading strategy programme and received strategic reading instruction (experimental group) obtained both statistically and practically significantly higher marks on the reading comprehension test (posttest) than did the learners in the control group. The posttest results indicated that the learners in the experimental group used certain strategies statistically (p<0.05), as well as practically significantly (small to large effect size), more often than the learners in the control group. The reading instruction programme developed in this study focuses on five reading strategies, namely guessing the meaning of words from the context, making inferences, predicting what is to come in a text, identifying the main idea and summarising. The programme presents an overview of the guidelines for a reading strategy instruction programme. It outlines the purpose, target group, content and other aspects, instruction, classroom procedure and assessment concerning a meaningful reading strategy instruction programme. English Second Language teachers may find it worth their while to implement reading strategy training models of a similar nature in order to develop their learners' proficiency in reading comprehension and reading strategy use. / Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007