Children’s Reading Comprehension and Oral Reading Fluency in Easy Text

This study explored third-graders’ oral reading fluency (ORF) in easy text in relation to their third- and fourth-grade reading comprehension. It also examined the children’s performance on two different measures of text exposure, a self-report questionnaire and a title-recognition test. Although third-graders’ ORF related significantly to their reading comprehension, oral language comprehension accounted for most of the variance in reading comprehension, whereas single word reading speed accounted for most of the variance in ORF. Third-grade reading comprehension and ORF each predicted unique variance in children’s scores on a fourth-grade state-mandated reading comprehension assessment. Scores on the self-report questionnaire correlated significantly with third-grade ORF and fourth-grade reading; the self-report accounted for reliable variance in ORF even with all of the other reading ability variables entered first. Results are consistent with the viewpoint that text exposure affects reading fluency. They also demonstrate that ORF is a valuable predictor of middle-elementary children’s reading comprehension, even when the ORF measure employs very easy text in which children achieve near-perfect word accuracy.     

大学英语专业学生听力理解水平差异调查

听力理解是一个循序渐进过程，需要学生具有良好的口语基础、厚实的阅读理解基础及精读章的能力。学生的学习态度、学习毅力等也是一个非常重要的。本从以上几个方面出发，初探大学英语专业学生听力理解水平差异。     

篇章结构在阅读理解中的作用

缺乏对篇章结构的认识是目前大学英语阅读教学的一个主要问题。由于传统教学偏重对词和句法的讲解,阅读教学缺乏对篇章的宏观处理,因而制约了学生阅读理解水平的提高。篇章结构作为文本重要的内在特征对提高阅读理解的正确性和效率有着积极作用,采用正确的阅读教学策略,传授篇章结构知识,从长远来看可以大幅提高阅读教学的效率。     

试论中学语文阅读教学中文本意义的多元阐释

随着教育改革的不断深入,文章意义的解读从单一化向多元化转变,阅读教学重视体现学生的主体性,培养学生的创造性思维,发挥学生的潜能,让学生对作品进行自由、广泛、深入的认识,形成自己独特解悟。认识这些重要性后就要做到：一、课堂学习学生要实现由学“答”到学“问”的转变;二、在合作学习小组中,对文章进行评读,互赖促进;三、在自主探索中体验求知的快乐;四、尊重学生情感,正确看待学生个体差异,做好同步与差异的统一;五、鼓励学生养成健康时尚并富有个性的审美观;六、保证学生课外阅读正常有效的进行。     

Does mind wandering mediate the effects of habitual reading motivation on comprehension?

The present article reports on a study that examined how individual differences in habitual reading motivation affect a reader's tendency to engage in text-related and text-unrelated thinking during reading. Two-hundred participants read each three texts about finance and meteorology topics and answered comprehension questions afterward. Participants' thoughts during reading were assessed with retrospective ratings and thought samples. Habitual reading motivation was assessed with questionnaires in a separate session prior to reading. Structural equation models fit to this data revealed that more motivated readers reported less mind wandering, more engagement in elaborative thinking and comprehension monitoring, as well as higher topic interest. Furthermore, the beneficial effect of reading motivation on comprehension was partially mediated by mind wandering, elaboration, comprehension monitoring, and interest. Our findings offer a novel explanation for the well-known beneficial effects of reading motivation on comprehension: habitually motivated readers are more likely to engage in text-related thinking and avoid text-unrelated thoughts.     

Young learners’ reading and writing performance: Exploring collaborative modeling of text structure as an additional component of self-regulated strategy development

This study examined the effects of adding collaborative modeling of text structure as an additional component of self-regulated strategy development for elementary school 6th-grade students learning English as a second language (ESL). In this study, 34 students receiving a ‘Self-regulated strategy development plus collaborative modeling of text structure’ intervention were compared with 36 students receiving a ‘collaborative modeling of text structure only’ intervention, 38 students receiving a ‘self-regulated strategy development only’ intervention, and 36 students receiving traditional instruction. Several measures (i.e., content comprehension, summarization of main ideas, and essay writing) were administered after the one-month intervention. Results revealed that, compared to traditional instruction, self-regulated strategy development and collaborative modeling of text structure respectively resulted in better comprehension levels and writing performance. The combination of self-regulated strategy development and collaborative modeling of text structure was particularly effective in increasing primary school students’ content comprehension and writing quality. These findings highlight the benefit of coupling self-regulated strategy development and collaborative modeling of text structure for elementary school ESL classroom instruction.     

Word recognition: The interface of educational policies and scientific research

As a result of a tremendous amount of research in educational, cognitive and developmental psychology on the nature and acquisition of reading skills, practitioners have a goldmine of evidence upon which to design effective educational programs for beginning and problem readers. This evidence is highly consistent in terms of delineating different stages of reading that young children pass through, the types of skills that they are to acquire, and the sorts of difficulties that they are likely to encounter. The purpose of this paper is to broadly outline current knowledge of the beginning stages of reading acquisition for both normal and problem readers and to relate this knowledge to current language arts curricular practices in North America.     

Reading comprehension difficulties in children

This paper reports two studies investigating the nature of comprehension deficits in a group of 7–8 year old children whose decoding skills are normal, but whose reading comprehension skills are poor. The performance of these poor comprehenders was compared to two control groups, Chronological-Age controls and Comprehension-Age controls. The first study examined whether these comprehension difficulties are specific to reading. On two measures of listening comprehension the poor comprehenders were found to perform at a significantly lower level than Chronological-Age controls. However, they did not differ from a group of younger children matched for reading comprehension skills. This indicates that the observed comprehension difficulties are not restricted to reading, but rather represent a general comprehension limitation. The second study investigated whether these comprehension difficulties can be explained in terms of a memory deficit. The short-term and working memory skills of these three groups were examined. The poor comprehenders did not differ from their Chronological-Age controls on either of these tasks. In conclusion, it is argued that working memory processes are not a major causal factor in the creation of the comprehension difficulties identified in the present group of poor comprehenders.     

六级英语阅读能力的培养及应试技巧

本文根据个人的平时教学经验,分析了六级考试阅读的特点,提出了如何培养学生六级英语阅读的能 力,及学生如何应付六级英语阅读考试的技巧。旨在帮助学生了解阅读及阅读考试的特点,提高学生的阅读能力。     

A longitudinal think-aloud study of spontaneous strategic processing during the reading of multiple expository texts

This study examined the strategiesspontaneously used by university students asthey tried to understand multiple expositorytexts as part of their normal reading andstudying. Law students read self-selected textsat different points in time during onesemester. Think-aloud protocols generatedduring reading were analyzed to identify typesof strategic text processing. It was foundthat students' strategic processing changedover time, with some of the changes associatedwith changes in students' perception of thenature of the reading task. Different changesin strategic processing were observed forstudents at different levels of performance.     

Designating reader perspective to increase comprehension and interest

In three experiments we examined whether reader perspective on a long expository text could be manipulated such that increased text interest and enhancement of two comprehension outcomes would result. In Experiment 1 we verified the viability of a new text for experimental purposes. We then assigned readers a perspective before reading in Experiment 2 and after reading in Experiment 3. One primary research question addressed whether interest in a long expository text could be manipulated by assigning readers a perspective. We considered this to be an examination of purpose-driven interest ( Schraw & Dennison, 1994). As hypothesized, participants rated text segments as more interesting when the segments corresponded to their assigned perspective. In support of our second hypothesis, that recall would increase as a function of reader perspective, low to medium effects were found for both total number and depth of ideas recalled. We discuss implications of this work for understanding of the role of relevance in increasing recall. Implications for practice and future research are also discussed.     

谈英语阅读能力的学习与提高

英语阅读是通向英语学习高级阶段所必经的困惑、彷徨、劳顿之旅。为了除疑解惑,本文本着提供有益的思考和启发,方便学习者借鉴和实践的原则,结合本人在学习以及教学过程中的一些浅略思考,呈现给大家一些有益的建议。     

Comprehension monitoring of written discourse across early-to-middle adolescence

Comprehension monitoring is conceptualized as a metacognitive process involving monitoring and control of ongoing discourse processing. The error-detection paradigm was used in an experiment in which 315 7th-, 9th-, and 11th-grade students of low-to-high reading ability monitored and controlled their reading as they searched three times through a text. Search One showed that although all readers failed to monitor many problems, monitoring at lexical, syntactic, and particularly semantic levels increased with age and reading ability. Monitoring for low-ability readers remained low at all three grades. Search Two showed an asymmetry in the effects of instruction to search for errors, and some students exhibited constraints on monitoring and control. Finally, Search Three showed that some students had knowledge necessary to monitor more errors but failed to apply that knowledge to the text.     

语篇衔接在大学英语四级阅读中的应用

阅读一直是大学英语四级考试的重点之一,如何提高学生英语阅读理解能力是人们普遍关注并亟待解决的问题。在英语四级阅读中运用语篇衔接理论,不仅有助于语篇的理解,而且对学生阅读理解能力的提高也有很大帮助。     

Comprehension of relations among controversial texts: effects of external strategy use

This study examined the effects of external strategy use on the comprehension of relations among controversial texts. About 80 undergraduates read six controversial texts for the purpose of either finding intertextual relations or forming their opinion about the controversial issue. Half of them were permitted to use external strategies, the other half were not. Results indicated that only when given a purpose of relation-finding did external strategy users perform better than non-users in the comprehension of intertextual relations. Readers with a purpose of relation-finding also outperformed readers with a purpose of opinion-forming when permitted to use external strategies. The use of external strategies had no influence on the recall of intratextual arguments, regardless of reading purpose. These results were discussed in terms of readers’ use of external strategies to serve their reading purposes.