This study explores the influence of after-school tutoring on reading comprehension skills of students with dyslexia(DD)in grades 3-5 in China and its participating factors.Using a mixed-methods design,the quantitativ...This study explores the influence of after-school tutoring on reading comprehension skills of students with dyslexia(DD)in grades 3-5 in China and its participating factors.Using a mixed-methods design,the quantitative data(GORT-4 reading test)of 50 public primary school students in Qingdao and their parents’feedback were collected through questionnaires,supplemented by semi-structured interviews with eight parents for qualitative analysis.The findings are as follows:(1)Family socioeconomic status and parents’awareness of DD are the key factors to participate in after-school counseling;(2)The students who participated in the after-school counseling performed significantly better in the GORT-4 comprehension test(P<0.05);(3)Counseling makes up for the lack of classroom learning through personalized strategies(such as multi-sensory teaching and phonological awareness training),but parents’psychological support is the core of successful intervention.The necessity of early targeted intervention was emphasized,and practical enlightenment was provided for the educational support system of DD students in China.展开更多
This study investigates how English morphological awareness contributes to reading comprehension in beginner Chinese EFL learners.The research examines both derivational and compounding morphological awareness at mult...This study investigates how English morphological awareness contributes to reading comprehension in beginner Chinese EFL learners.The research examines both derivational and compounding morphological awareness at multiple levels(identification,discrimination,and manipulation)on English reading comprehension and explores whether their contributions are mediated by vocabulary knowledge.Data were collected from 71 Grade 9 students using various morphological awareness tasks,a vocabulary test,and a reading comprehension assessment.Mixed-effects regression and mediation analyses revealed that all components of morphological awareness,except derivational identification,significantly contributed to reading comprehension.Derivational manipulation was found to have both direct and indirect effects on reading comprehension,partially mediated by vocabulary knowledge.In contrast,compounding awareness influenced reading comprehension primarily through its effect on vocabulary.These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of how different facets of morphological awareness impact reading comprehension in EFL contexts,offering valuable insights for vocabulary and reading instruction.展开更多
The human beings can express the outside world and their mental feelings by languages, they know the materials＇ nature by comparing with their similarities. The languages are not only tools in understanding,communica...The human beings can express the outside world and their mental feelings by languages, they know the materials＇ nature by comparing with their similarities. The languages are not only tools in understanding,communication and thinking, but also one element of the cultures. Thinking is a kind of abstract skill, and the language is the vehicle of thinking, through which people can understand the human beings＇ thinking methods and cultural characters. The languages are decided by the culture. Reading comprehension is the readers＇ own behavior, during which the schema plays a key role and readers must combine the new information with their former cultural knowledge, rebuilding the new information so as to understand the deep meanings of the articles.展开更多
This article intends to shed some light on effective use of three reading strategies: skimming,scanning and studying for non-English-speaking middle school students.The article also presents some advice for the teache...This article intends to shed some light on effective use of three reading strategies: skimming,scanning and studying for non-English-speaking middle school students.The article also presents some advice for the teacher's consideration when designing and preparing reading materials.展开更多
The role of grammar in language teaching has always been the question that researchers debate.In recent years,grammar knowledge has been distinguished in the foreign language acquisition research,namely the implicit k...The role of grammar in language teaching has always been the question that researchers debate.In recent years,grammar knowledge has been distinguished in the foreign language acquisition research,namely the implicit knowledge and the explicit knowledge(Dai Manchun 2005;Gu Qiyi 2005).As to the reaserch of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge as well as their measurement,it is easy to find that many scholars have studied the role of two different kinds of grammar knowledge in second language development.But the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in second language reading comprehension is too few,not to mention the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in English reading comprehension in the senior high school.The purpose of this study is to find the relationship between implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge and English reading comprehension ability of senior high school students.In addition,since the vocabulary is important to reading comprehension,this factor will also be considered in the study.展开更多
Learning strategies are usually regarded as one of the aspects of the cognitive psychology and reading is a cognitive process in which the reader engages in a conversation with the text or the author. Then is there an...Learning strategies are usually regarded as one of the aspects of the cognitive psychology and reading is a cognitive process in which the reader engages in a conversation with the text or the author. Then is there any relationship between learning strategies and reading comprehension？ To explore this, an experimental study is conducted in this paper. The conclusion is thereafter reached that reading comprehension is closely related to and greatly affected by learning strategies, especially cognitive and metacognitive strategies.展开更多
The present paper is a correlational study of Junior college students' achievement test and reading comprehension test based on students' interests.Through the case study,students' interests should raw muc...The present paper is a correlational study of Junior college students' achievement test and reading comprehension test based on students' interests.Through the case study,students' interests should raw much attention while teachers choose textbooks or teaching materials or design teaching plan.展开更多
Background Generally speaking. Chinese college graduates in the fifties and sixties took Russian as their second language, and those who graduated in the seventies had no second language to speak of. Now, in the years...Background Generally speaking. Chinese college graduates in the fifties and sixties took Russian as their second language, and those who graduated in the seventies had no second language to speak of. Now, in the years of our Open Door Policy, they find they have to learn some English and learn it quickly. They try to learn from radio and TV and many take English courses of 4 to 6 months, with varying degree of success. Their chief stumbling blocks展开更多
This paper is intended to reveal the likelihood that conceptual categorization can be used to understand a text by reconstructing the semantic categories through which the author＇s meaning is conveyed, and proposes a...This paper is intended to reveal the likelihood that conceptual categorization can be used to understand a text by reconstructing the semantic categories through which the author＇s meaning is conveyed, and proposes an alternative way to look into reading comprehension. It is proposed that categorization can be taken as an alternative approach to second/foreign language reading instruction. That is, while reading comprehension is defined in terms of the ability to recognize the inclusion and membership properties of contextually determined semantic categories in a text, the learner needs to arrange the events, actions, or concepts into a structured unit, both horizontally and vertically. Categorization theory will be introduced in relation to Rosch famous studies （1973, 1975）, examples taken from a graded reader will be illustrated as how to identify items with category structure, and finally issues that are not addressed in this paper will be discussed.展开更多
The present study investigated the impact from GOs （Graphic Organizers） upon reading comprehension ability. To this end, an OPT （Oxford Placement Test） was administered to a research population （N = 354） in orde...The present study investigated the impact from GOs （Graphic Organizers） upon reading comprehension ability. To this end, an OPT （Oxford Placement Test） was administered to a research population （N = 354） in order to homogenize it. On the basis of the test results, the population was sorted into three groups of reading-low, reading-mid, and reading-high students. Sixty participants with the lowest level of reading comprehension proficiency were randomly selected and assigned to an EG （Experimental Group） （N = 30） and a CG （Control Group） （N = 30）. Afterwards, a TOEFL （Test of English as a Foreign Language） reading comprehension pretest was administered to both groups in order to determine their current level of reading proficiency. Then, the EG received 10 successive 90-minute sessions on GOs as post-reading strategies for expository text comprehension, while the CG received the same amount of treatment on other post-reading strategies. In the end, another TOEFL reading comprehension posttest was administered to the research groups to measure their reading comprehension performance level after the treatment. The results revealed that GOs were statistically more significant and effective for the low-skilled readers than other post-reading strategies.展开更多
The present study attempts to identify the major factors influencing EFL reading comprehension by drawing on the data collected from questionnaire and tests. The findings indicate that reading comprehension is compose...The present study attempts to identify the major factors influencing EFL reading comprehension by drawing on the data collected from questionnaire and tests. The findings indicate that reading comprehension is composed of three major components： ＂Schema＂, ＂Vocabulary＂, and ＂Motivation ＆ Purpose＂. These three components are made up of the following six factors respectively： ＂textual schema＂, ＂extra-textual schema＂, ＂vocabulary guessing＂, ＂vocabulary noticing＂, ＂motivation＂ and ＂purpose＂. Among the major components of reading comprehension, the four factors of ＂textual schema＂, ＂vocabulary guessing＂, ＂vocabulary noticing＂ and ＂motivation＂ are significantly correlated with reading comprehension.展开更多
In order to provide English as a foreign language students with effective English language learning approaches, this investigation is focused on how students deal with words when they are doing reading material. It is...In order to provide English as a foreign language students with effective English language learning approaches, this investigation is focused on how students deal with words when they are doing reading material. It is found that most students can use some skills to guess the unknown words in reading materials, such as explanatory analysis skills, syntactic analysis skills, and structural analysis skills, while they have overlooked how these words are organized metaphorically and metonymically. This investigation will provide students with the target language knowledge metaphors and metonymy, examining the impact on computer vocabulary guessing and reading comprehension through teaching the concept of metaphor and metonymy. In this research, the new word-guessing skill based on the knowledge of metaphor and metonymy was applied to word-guessing teaching in reading comprehension of computer material. The research question is studied in this experiment： Can the training of using ways of word-guessing base on the knowledge of metonymy and metaphor promote students＇ ability of word guessing in reading comprehension of computer material？ The results show that students have gradually paid attention to the word-guessing skill in reading process. The skills based on the knowledge of metaphor and metonymy have helped students get the right meaning of the unknown words in computer reading materials. It has really enlarged students＇ vocabulary and improved their confidence in finishing reading.展开更多
As far as we are concemed, one of the elements of assessing EFL/ESL （English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language） learners＇ language proficiency in institutions and universities in our country ＂lran...As far as we are concemed, one of the elements of assessing EFL/ESL （English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language） learners＇ language proficiency in institutions and universities in our country ＂lran＂ are multiple-choice reading comprehension tests. We also know that, it comprises one major section of the standard and TOEFL （Test of English as a Foreign Language） tests. Taking into account its importance and the problems which EFL learners have answered them, I get motivated to uncover some of the test-taking strategies which they employ to answer multiple-choice reading comprehension questions when dealing with familiar versus unfamiliar topics. To get a better conclusion, I choose 20 advanced male and female candidates whose English proficiency is at an acceptable level and at least at the same age level, and they major in English language from different colleges and universities. They are given two reading comprehension passages （familiar and unfamiliar）, each one with five final questions and allotted time to answer the questions. Two main instruments in this study are a retrospective think-aloud protocol and a semi-structured interview. The results of the reading comprehension tests and interview part revealed that advanced learners＇ high scores in the familiar topic were not because of their strategy use but because of their high linguistic and background knowledge on the topic. I also concluded that the number, kind, and sequence of strategies employed, were greatly dependent on the degree of testees＇ familiarity on the topic. In other words, test-takers used more strategies to compensate for their lack of linguistic knowledge.展开更多
For years, researchers as well as language teachers both at home and abroad have taken great pains to study the process of reading and try to find out what is the most related to a successful reading, therefore, a lot...For years, researchers as well as language teachers both at home and abroad have taken great pains to study the process of reading and try to find out what is the most related to a successful reading, therefore, a lot of reading theories have been proposed. Some people emphasize the importance of words and their quick identification. Others emphasize the important role of reading skills as well as background knowledge. Still others emphasize that reading comprehension is both a process of word processing and a process of information processing by means of one＇s background knowledge. The author here, through an experiment, thinks that vocabulary is the main contributor to reading comprehension and reading skills are very important for students to comprehend, especially in advanced reading comprehension.展开更多
This empirical study investigates Chinese EFL students＇ attributions in reading. The purposes ot this study are to investigate the development of Chinese EFL learners＇ attributions for their perceived success and fa...This empirical study investigates Chinese EFL students＇ attributions in reading. The purposes ot this study are to investigate the development of Chinese EFL learners＇ attributions for their perceived success and failure in second language reading and to clarify the relationship between learners＇ reading proficiency levels and their attributions. The results show that （1） Nearly half of the university students feel ＂Just so so＂ in English reading; （2） Environmental variables such as teacher feedback, peers or classroom play an influential role in the learners＇ attribution. This paper concludes with a number of pedagogical suggestions for the teaching and learning of English reading.展开更多
This research was carried out in Iranian EFL （English as a foreign language） reading comprehension classes in an attempt to answer three research questions： （1） Does collaborative reading lead to greater comprehe...This research was carried out in Iranian EFL （English as a foreign language） reading comprehension classes in an attempt to answer three research questions： （1） Does collaborative reading lead to greater comprehension of a text than private reading？; （2） If so, what strategies are used by the students during collaborative reading？; and （3） In what ways might these strategies contribute to the higher level of comprehension？. A quasi-experimental design was used to answer the first question. The participants were pre-tested and streamed into two classes of equal reading comprehension abilities. The intervention consisted of four texts of equal length, comprising two rated in a pilot study as conceptually difficult/linguistically easy, and two rated as conceptually easy/linguistically difficult. The subjects in each class were involved in reading the two types of texts collaboratively and privately for four sessions. After reading the text, the subjects were asked to answer in writing 10 comprehension questions. Collaborative reading resulted in consistently and significantly higher scores than private reading for all four texts. Qualitative methods were employed to answer the last two questions. Group interactions during collaborative reading were tape recorded and transcribed, and 10 students selected at random from the two classes were interviewed in depth. Analysis of the group interaction transcripts revealed that the participants were using five major strategies in co-constructing meaning from the texts. These strategies included brainstorming, clarifying the language, summarizing, paraphrasing, and interaction management. Other minor （i.e., infrequent） strategies were also identified, such as making PCU/NCU （positive/negative claim to understand）, eliciting confirmation, and confirming.展开更多
文摘This study explores the influence of after-school tutoring on reading comprehension skills of students with dyslexia(DD)in grades 3-5 in China and its participating factors.Using a mixed-methods design,the quantitative data(GORT-4 reading test)of 50 public primary school students in Qingdao and their parents’feedback were collected through questionnaires,supplemented by semi-structured interviews with eight parents for qualitative analysis.The findings are as follows:(1)Family socioeconomic status and parents’awareness of DD are the key factors to participate in after-school counseling;(2)The students who participated in the after-school counseling performed significantly better in the GORT-4 comprehension test(P<0.05);(3)Counseling makes up for the lack of classroom learning through personalized strategies(such as multi-sensory teaching and phonological awareness training),but parents’psychological support is the core of successful intervention.The necessity of early targeted intervention was emphasized,and practical enlightenment was provided for the educational support system of DD students in China.
文摘This study investigates how English morphological awareness contributes to reading comprehension in beginner Chinese EFL learners.The research examines both derivational and compounding morphological awareness at multiple levels(identification,discrimination,and manipulation)on English reading comprehension and explores whether their contributions are mediated by vocabulary knowledge.Data were collected from 71 Grade 9 students using various morphological awareness tasks,a vocabulary test,and a reading comprehension assessment.Mixed-effects regression and mediation analyses revealed that all components of morphological awareness,except derivational identification,significantly contributed to reading comprehension.Derivational manipulation was found to have both direct and indirect effects on reading comprehension,partially mediated by vocabulary knowledge.In contrast,compounding awareness influenced reading comprehension primarily through its effect on vocabulary.These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of how different facets of morphological awareness impact reading comprehension in EFL contexts,offering valuable insights for vocabulary and reading instruction.
文摘The human beings can express the outside world and their mental feelings by languages, they know the materials＇ nature by comparing with their similarities. The languages are not only tools in understanding,communication and thinking, but also one element of the cultures. Thinking is a kind of abstract skill, and the language is the vehicle of thinking, through which people can understand the human beings＇ thinking methods and cultural characters. The languages are decided by the culture. Reading comprehension is the readers＇ own behavior, during which the schema plays a key role and readers must combine the new information with their former cultural knowledge, rebuilding the new information so as to understand the deep meanings of the articles.
文摘This article intends to shed some light on effective use of three reading strategies: skimming,scanning and studying for non-English-speaking middle school students.The article also presents some advice for the teacher's consideration when designing and preparing reading materials.
文摘The role of grammar in language teaching has always been the question that researchers debate.In recent years,grammar knowledge has been distinguished in the foreign language acquisition research,namely the implicit knowledge and the explicit knowledge(Dai Manchun 2005;Gu Qiyi 2005).As to the reaserch of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge as well as their measurement,it is easy to find that many scholars have studied the role of two different kinds of grammar knowledge in second language development.But the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in second language reading comprehension is too few,not to mention the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in English reading comprehension in the senior high school.The purpose of this study is to find the relationship between implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge and English reading comprehension ability of senior high school students.In addition,since the vocabulary is important to reading comprehension,this factor will also be considered in the study.
文摘Learning strategies are usually regarded as one of the aspects of the cognitive psychology and reading is a cognitive process in which the reader engages in a conversation with the text or the author. Then is there any relationship between learning strategies and reading comprehension？ To explore this, an experimental study is conducted in this paper. The conclusion is thereafter reached that reading comprehension is closely related to and greatly affected by learning strategies, especially cognitive and metacognitive strategies.
文摘The present paper is a correlational study of Junior college students' achievement test and reading comprehension test based on students' interests.Through the case study,students' interests should raw much attention while teachers choose textbooks or teaching materials or design teaching plan.
文摘Background Generally speaking. Chinese college graduates in the fifties and sixties took Russian as their second language, and those who graduated in the seventies had no second language to speak of. Now, in the years of our Open Door Policy, they find they have to learn some English and learn it quickly. They try to learn from radio and TV and many take English courses of 4 to 6 months, with varying degree of success. Their chief stumbling blocks
文摘This paper is intended to reveal the likelihood that conceptual categorization can be used to understand a text by reconstructing the semantic categories through which the author＇s meaning is conveyed, and proposes an alternative way to look into reading comprehension. It is proposed that categorization can be taken as an alternative approach to second/foreign language reading instruction. That is, while reading comprehension is defined in terms of the ability to recognize the inclusion and membership properties of contextually determined semantic categories in a text, the learner needs to arrange the events, actions, or concepts into a structured unit, both horizontally and vertically. Categorization theory will be introduced in relation to Rosch famous studies （1973, 1975）, examples taken from a graded reader will be illustrated as how to identify items with category structure, and finally issues that are not addressed in this paper will be discussed.
文摘The present study investigated the impact from GOs （Graphic Organizers） upon reading comprehension ability. To this end, an OPT （Oxford Placement Test） was administered to a research population （N = 354） in order to homogenize it. On the basis of the test results, the population was sorted into three groups of reading-low, reading-mid, and reading-high students. Sixty participants with the lowest level of reading comprehension proficiency were randomly selected and assigned to an EG （Experimental Group） （N = 30） and a CG （Control Group） （N = 30）. Afterwards, a TOEFL （Test of English as a Foreign Language） reading comprehension pretest was administered to both groups in order to determine their current level of reading proficiency. Then, the EG received 10 successive 90-minute sessions on GOs as post-reading strategies for expository text comprehension, while the CG received the same amount of treatment on other post-reading strategies. In the end, another TOEFL reading comprehension posttest was administered to the research groups to measure their reading comprehension performance level after the treatment. The results revealed that GOs were statistically more significant and effective for the low-skilled readers than other post-reading strategies.
文摘The present study attempts to identify the major factors influencing EFL reading comprehension by drawing on the data collected from questionnaire and tests. The findings indicate that reading comprehension is composed of three major components： ＂Schema＂, ＂Vocabulary＂, and ＂Motivation ＆ Purpose＂. These three components are made up of the following six factors respectively： ＂textual schema＂, ＂extra-textual schema＂, ＂vocabulary guessing＂, ＂vocabulary noticing＂, ＂motivation＂ and ＂purpose＂. Among the major components of reading comprehension, the four factors of ＂textual schema＂, ＂vocabulary guessing＂, ＂vocabulary noticing＂ and ＂motivation＂ are significantly correlated with reading comprehension.
文摘In order to provide English as a foreign language students with effective English language learning approaches, this investigation is focused on how students deal with words when they are doing reading material. It is found that most students can use some skills to guess the unknown words in reading materials, such as explanatory analysis skills, syntactic analysis skills, and structural analysis skills, while they have overlooked how these words are organized metaphorically and metonymically. This investigation will provide students with the target language knowledge metaphors and metonymy, examining the impact on computer vocabulary guessing and reading comprehension through teaching the concept of metaphor and metonymy. In this research, the new word-guessing skill based on the knowledge of metaphor and metonymy was applied to word-guessing teaching in reading comprehension of computer material. The research question is studied in this experiment： Can the training of using ways of word-guessing base on the knowledge of metonymy and metaphor promote students＇ ability of word guessing in reading comprehension of computer material？ The results show that students have gradually paid attention to the word-guessing skill in reading process. The skills based on the knowledge of metaphor and metonymy have helped students get the right meaning of the unknown words in computer reading materials. It has really enlarged students＇ vocabulary and improved their confidence in finishing reading.
文摘As far as we are concemed, one of the elements of assessing EFL/ESL （English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language） learners＇ language proficiency in institutions and universities in our country ＂lran＂ are multiple-choice reading comprehension tests. We also know that, it comprises one major section of the standard and TOEFL （Test of English as a Foreign Language） tests. Taking into account its importance and the problems which EFL learners have answered them, I get motivated to uncover some of the test-taking strategies which they employ to answer multiple-choice reading comprehension questions when dealing with familiar versus unfamiliar topics. To get a better conclusion, I choose 20 advanced male and female candidates whose English proficiency is at an acceptable level and at least at the same age level, and they major in English language from different colleges and universities. They are given two reading comprehension passages （familiar and unfamiliar）, each one with five final questions and allotted time to answer the questions. Two main instruments in this study are a retrospective think-aloud protocol and a semi-structured interview. The results of the reading comprehension tests and interview part revealed that advanced learners＇ high scores in the familiar topic were not because of their strategy use but because of their high linguistic and background knowledge on the topic. I also concluded that the number, kind, and sequence of strategies employed, were greatly dependent on the degree of testees＇ familiarity on the topic. In other words, test-takers used more strategies to compensate for their lack of linguistic knowledge.
文摘For years, researchers as well as language teachers both at home and abroad have taken great pains to study the process of reading and try to find out what is the most related to a successful reading, therefore, a lot of reading theories have been proposed. Some people emphasize the importance of words and their quick identification. Others emphasize the important role of reading skills as well as background knowledge. Still others emphasize that reading comprehension is both a process of word processing and a process of information processing by means of one＇s background knowledge. The author here, through an experiment, thinks that vocabulary is the main contributor to reading comprehension and reading skills are very important for students to comprehend, especially in advanced reading comprehension.
文摘This empirical study investigates Chinese EFL students＇ attributions in reading. The purposes ot this study are to investigate the development of Chinese EFL learners＇ attributions for their perceived success and failure in second language reading and to clarify the relationship between learners＇ reading proficiency levels and their attributions. The results show that （1） Nearly half of the university students feel ＂Just so so＂ in English reading; （2） Environmental variables such as teacher feedback, peers or classroom play an influential role in the learners＇ attribution. This paper concludes with a number of pedagogical suggestions for the teaching and learning of English reading.
文摘This research was carried out in Iranian EFL （English as a foreign language） reading comprehension classes in an attempt to answer three research questions： （1） Does collaborative reading lead to greater comprehension of a text than private reading？; （2） If so, what strategies are used by the students during collaborative reading？; and （3） In what ways might these strategies contribute to the higher level of comprehension？. A quasi-experimental design was used to answer the first question. The participants were pre-tested and streamed into two classes of equal reading comprehension abilities. The intervention consisted of four texts of equal length, comprising two rated in a pilot study as conceptually difficult/linguistically easy, and two rated as conceptually easy/linguistically difficult. The subjects in each class were involved in reading the two types of texts collaboratively and privately for four sessions. After reading the text, the subjects were asked to answer in writing 10 comprehension questions. Collaborative reading resulted in consistently and significantly higher scores than private reading for all four texts. Qualitative methods were employed to answer the last two questions. Group interactions during collaborative reading were tape recorded and transcribed, and 10 students selected at random from the two classes were interviewed in depth. Analysis of the group interaction transcripts revealed that the participants were using five major strategies in co-constructing meaning from the texts. These strategies included brainstorming, clarifying the language, summarizing, paraphrasing, and interaction management. Other minor （i.e., infrequent） strategies were also identified, such as making PCU/NCU （positive/negative claim to understand）, eliciting confirmation, and confirming.
