More and more private language schools provide IELTS preparation courses for candidates who want to sit the test for admission to undergraduate and postgraduate courses in English-speaking countries. This essay investigates whether the IELTS preparation course in a language school in China offers an adequate preparation for candidates. The study focuses on one preparation course for the IELTS reading test (other modules are beyond the scope of the present study). A questionnaire and interview questions concerning both the IELTS reading test and the preparation course were given to 20 candidates and two teachers by e-mail.This study first analyzed the reading skills tested in the IELTS reading test and discussed possible test difficulties. It then investigated the IELTS reading preparation course by means of candidate feedback on course expectations, course structure, teaching materials and teaching methods. The feedback shows that the course fulfilled the candidates’ expectations, i.e. it taught them useful test-taking techniques and reading skills. The teachers’ responses indicate that the course achieved its objective to familiarize candidates with the IELTS reading test. The study results demonstrate that the preparation course is test-based, teaching candidates IELTS test-taking strategies, which effectively prepare candidates for the IELTS test. Candidates and teachers also offered suggestions for future course improvement.

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.

Not many studies exist in the literature on reading in South Africa which examine the differences between the reading performance of first (L1) and second (L2) language English speaking learners, particularly those who experience barriers to learning. Using archival material from the Education Clinic of the University of the Witwatersrand, this study compared the results on the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test (Brown Level) for a group of 43 high school L1 (20) and L2 (23) learners identified as experiencing barriers to learning. In line with international research on reading difficulties skills (Ben-Zeev, 1984; Baker, 1988; Drucker, 2003; Cummins, 1989,1991; Miller, 1984; Droop and Verhoeven, 1998), it was found that the L2 students performed significantly below the level of their L1 counterparts in Auditory Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. The results on the Phonetic Analysis were found to be similar for both groups.

This study examines the effects that discipline-based art education has upon reading test scores of public school second grade children. The progress in language arts of an experimental group and a control group were followed for two six week grading cycles. The experimental group was treated with DBAE instruction for one six weeks, while the control group received only studio production exercises. Both groups received no art instruction for another six weeks. Gains between mean pre-test and post-test scores indicated a significant difference for the experimental group but not the control group.

Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka om ljusets färgtemperatur påverkar läshastigheten och valet av ett färgat overlay. Metod: I studien deltog 35 personer, 26 kvinnor och 9 män. Tre deltagare uteslöts då de inte klarade normalvärdena för de kliniska tester som genomfördes. De deltagare som klarade de kliniska testerna läste ett lästest under två ljuskällor med olika färgtemperatur, en varmvit och en neutralt vit. Testet lästes i en minut med och utan färgade overlays under båda ljuskällorna och antalet lästa ord noterades. Antalet lästa ord analyserades sedan med parade t-tester i Microsoft Excel. Även valet av färgade overlays sammanställdes och analyserades. Resultat: Det fanns ingen signifikant skillnad i läshastighet mellan ljuskällorna utan färgade overlays. Det fanns inte heller någon signifikant förbättring av läshastigheten med overlays. Det enda undantaget var att overlayet som valdes under den varmvita ljuskällan förbättrade läshastigheten under den neutralt vita ljuskällan med 2,5 %. Nio deltagare valde exakt samma overlay under båda ljuskällorna, 23 deltagare (72 %) valde overlay som skilde sig mellan ljuskällorna. Slutsats: Läshastigheten utan overlay påverkas inte av ljuskällans färgtemperatur. En majoritet av deltagarna valde olika färgade overlays under de båda ljuskällorna. Däremot syns ingen skillnad i läshastighet beroende på vilket färgat overlay som används till respektive ljuskälla.

Den här studien handlar om vilka samband som kan urskiljas mellan barns läsintresse och skrivutveckling. Har de barn som gillar att läsa mycket böcker någon fördel i sin skrivutveckling jämfört med de barn som läser betydligt mindre? Tidigare forskning visar att läsa och skriva är nära sammankopplade och det återspeglas även av resultatet som framkommit i denna studie. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ metod där semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts tillsammans med två olika skrivtest, för att kunna mäta respondenternas skrivutveckling. De teorier som ligger till grund för arbetet är kognitiva teorin och sociokulturella teorin, då det är två teorier som är nära sammankopplade med läs- och skrivutveckling. Resultatet visar att samtliga respondenter utvecklas i sin skrivutveckling. Det finns två respondenter som sticker ut från mängden, en av dem besitter en skrivkompetens men ett lästest visar att eleven behöver mer träning i ordförståelse, den andra respondenten kunde inte alla bokstäver i alfabetet vid första skrivtestet men skrev berättelser hemma. / This study is about the connections that can be discerned between children's interest in reading and their writing development. Do the children who enjoy reading books have an advantage in their writing development compared to the children who read considerably less? Previous research shows that reading and writing are closely associated and this is also reflected in the results of this study. The study is based on a qualitative method where semi-structured interviews have been conducted together with two different writing tests, in order to measure the respondents' writing development. The theories underlying the work are cognitive theory and sociocultural theory, since these theories are closely linked to the development of reading and writing. The result shows that all respondents become more proficient in their writing development. There are two respondents who stand out from the crowd, one of them possesses writing skills but a reading test shows that the student needs more training in word comprehension, the other respondent could not write all letters of the alphabet at the first writing test but wrote stories at home.

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Learner’s processing styles may play a vital role in their approach to learning, more specifically; the ability to make inferences plays an important role in all areas of language and learning and may contribute to difficulties learners are experiencing at school. It is therefore that the research was directed at investigating a possible relationship between the left hemispheric analytical and right hemispheric holistic processing styles and the types of errors inferential versus literal, made in reading comprehension tasks. The hemispheric processing styles were operationalised as the approach taken to the Rey- Osterreith Complex Figure (ROCF) and the types of errors made on the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test (SDRT) across two levels of educational development. The sample consisted of grade 4 and grade 10 model C learners from the same schooling district. The data obtained from both assessments were subjected to correlation analyses, chi squared tests, analyses of variances (ANOVAs) and logistic regressions. Finally the results and associative conclusions indicated that there were only modest positive relationships between the predominant hemispheric processing styles and the error types on reading comprehension tasks and the demographics of the learners were the main contributors and accounted for the results discovered in the study as opposed to general hemispheric processing. Thus there is a need to understand the unique dynamics within the country and to explore alternatives to teaching practices to account for the variations evident in the classrooms.

Freshmen at Sul Ross State University are required to take tests which are used for placement purposes. One of the tests given is the Nelson-Denny Reading Test which measures comprehension, vocabulary, and reading rate. The scores are used with American College Test or Standard Achievement Test scores to place students in either remedial or regular freshman English. Remedial students, who score below the tenth-grade competency level, are placed in English 1300. Regular students are placed in English 1301 or 1302. Twelve studies were found which had been done in this area since 1980. One was directly related to this study. The Anglo and Hispanic population of the freshman class of 1987 was tested. Blacks were not included as they comprised less than 9 percent of the freshman class. There were 69 students in the experimental group and 162 in the control group. A pretest-posttest design was used. A three-way analysis of variance set up data for statistical testing. The Alpha level was set at .05. The findings indicate a significant difference for Hypothesis 1, which predicted no significant difference in the posttest performance of students required to take English 1300 and the pretest performance of students who were not. Therefore it was rejected. Because statistical testing yielded no significant difference for Hypothesis 2 — there will be no significant difference in posttest performance of Hispanic and Anglo students who were enrolled in English 1300, and Hypothesis 3—there will be no significant difference in the posttest performance of males and females who enrolled in English 1300, they were retained. Results indicate that while there is a significant difference between the means of the remedial students' posttest scores and means of the regular students' pretest scores, the program raises the performance of remedial students to a level accepted by Sul Ross State University. Therefore, the program is considered successful.

This study investigates the effect of testing mode on lower-level Saudi Arabian test-takers’ performance and cognitive processes when taking an L2 reading test on computer compared to its paper-based counterpart from an interface design perspective. An interface was developed and implemented into the computer-based version of the L2 reading test in this study, which was administered to 102 Saudi Arabian University students for quantitative analyses and to an additional eighteen for qualitative analyses. All participants were assessed on the same L2 reading test in two modes on two separate occasions in a within-subject design. Statistical tests such as correlations, group comparisons, and item analyses were employed to investigate test-mode effect on test-takers’ performance whereas test-takers’ concurrent verbalizations were recorded when taking the reading test to investigate their cognitive processes. Strategies found in both modes were compared through their frequency of occurrence. In addition, a qualitative illustration of test-takers cognitive behavior was given to describe the processes when taking a lower-level L2 reading test. A mixed-method approach was adhered to when collecting data consisting of questionnaires think-aloud protocols, and post-experimental interviews as main data collection instruments. Results on test-takers’ performance showed that there was no significant difference between the two modes of testing on overall reading performance, however, item level analyses discovered significant differences on two of the test’s items. Further qualitative investigation into possible interface design related causes for these differences showed no identifiable relationship between test-takers’ performance and the computer-based testing mode. Results of the cognitive processes analyses showed significant differences in three out of the total number of cognitive processes employed by test-takers indicating that test-takers had more difficulties in processing text in the paper-based test than in the computer-based test. Both product and process analyses carried out further provided convincing supporting evidence for the cognitive validity, content validity, and context validity contributing to the construct validity of the computer-based test used in this study.