266,565 research outputs found
Internal reading flexibility patterns among Texas A & M University undergraduates
No full textAlthough the concept of reading flexibility is well established in the literature, attempts to verify its existence have met with limited success. Prior to this investigation most of the reported flexibility studies attempted to measure external or inter-article flexibility. Only one study of internal or intra-article flexibility was found in the literature. The present investigation expands the knowledge base of internal reading flexibility. The purpose of this study was basically twofold. The first objective was to describe the patterns of internal reading flexibility among college freshmen. The second objective was to determine the effect of training in skimming, scanning, and intensive-reading on the flexibility of reading behavior. The procedures of the study were adapted from a study conducted by Rankin and Hess in 1970. The basic research design involved 34 college freshmen from five Educational Psychology classes. The subjects were randomly selected for assignment to treatment groups. All subjects were pre- and posttested using an adapted version of the Personnel Associates' Reading Adequacy REAP Test. Subjects in Group I (experimental) were treated using a self-pacing, self-instructing, flexibility module for one week. The module was designed to explain techniques of skimming, scanning, and intensive-reading, and to give practice in these skills. Subjects in Group II (control) continued to pursue their regular classroom assignments. ..
English as a second language teachers' perceptions and use of classroom-based reading assessment.
No full textThe purpose of this study was to explore ESL teachers�� perceptions and use of
classroom-based reading assessments. The research questions underpinning this
study were: 1) What types of classroom-based reading assessments are used in ESL
classrooms and how are they used? 2) What are ESL teachers�� perceptions regarding
the function and effectiveness of classroom-based reading assessments? 3) What and
how do external factors influence ESL teachers�� use of classroom-based reading
assessments? 4) What and how do internal factors influence ESL teachers�� use of
classroom-based reading assessments?
The participants of this study were six middle school ESL teachers and seven
elementary school ESL teachers. Data consisted of interviews with the participating
ESL teachers, classroom observations, and assessment materials.
The finding of this study indicated that there were three kinds of classroombased
reading assessments commonly used by ESL teachers in the classrooms: tests,
observation, and using writing to assess reading. These classroom-based reading
assessments served ESL teachers in two ways: helping teachers make decisions about
individual students and helping teachers make decisions about instruction. In addition,
classroom-based reading assessments were viewed as effective instructional
instruments. ESL teachers highly valued classroom-based reading assessments,
considered them accurate and valuable, and thought these assessments could provide
great help to the daily teaching of reading. Students, statewide mandated
standardized tests, and districts were three major forces that influenced this
assessment process.
Four conclusions can be drawn from this study. First, classroom-based
reading assessments played a central role in ESL teachers�� teaching and assessing of
reading. Second, ESL teachers highly valued classroom-based reading assessments,
considering them valuable, accurate, and efficient. Compared to statewide mandated
standardized testing, ESL teachers preferred classroom-based reading assessments.
Third, ESL teachers�� use of classroom-based reading assessments was largely under
the control of districts or school authorities and there were many disagreements on
the ways of assessing reading of ESL students between teachers and the districts or
schools. Finally, statewide mandated standardized testing had distorted ESL teachers��
use of classroom-based reading assessments in practice
Reading in the mobile era
No full textMobile technology can advance literacy and learning in underserved communities around the world.
Summary
Millions of people do not read for one reason: they do not have access to text. But today mobile phones and cellular networks are transforming a scarce resource into an abundant one.
Drawing on the analysis of over 4,000 surveys collected in seven developing countries and corresponding qualitative interviews, this report paints the most detailed picture to date of who reads books and stories on mobile devices and why.
The findings illuminate, for the first time, the habits, beliefs and profiles of mobile readers. This information points to strategies to expand mobile reading and, by extension, the educational, social and economic benefits associated with increased reading.
Mobile technology can advance literacy and learning in underserved communities around the world. This report shows how
The effect of thermal ageing on the rheological, thermal and electrical properties of poly(ethylene oxide)
No full textPolyethylene oxide (PEO) is a water-soluble polymer often used as a model system to observe filler effects. This paper details an investigation into the physical, thermal and electrical properties of thermally aged PEO. Three molecular weight host PEOs were tested for thermal ageing resistance - 100,000 g mol-1, 400,000 g mol-1 and 1,000,000 g mol-1. Thermally aged 100,000 g mol-1 molecular weight PEO samples were then tested using techniques such as- rheometry, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and AC electrical breakdown
The effects of metacognitive reading strategy training on the reading performance and student reading analysis strategies of third grade Spanish dominant students
No full textTypescript (photocopy)VitaMajor subject: Curriculum and instructionSpanish dominant children who attend school in the United States are faced with the challenge of obtaining an education in a second language. Bilingual education programs have been developed for these children which allow for a dual language instructional approach. This dual language approach advocates the use of the student's dominant language to enrich the acquisition of a second language. Cummins (1983), Garcia (1976), and Thonis (1983) have indicated that an instructional focus on the development of dominant language literacy will have a positive impact on second language literacy. However, some educators advocate the premature placement of Spanish dominant children in classrooms where all academic subjects are taught in the second language (English). Robledo & Cortez (1983) and Goldenberg (1987) have documented that this practice sometimes decreases the English reading performance of bilingual Spanish-English children. This condition may occur because cognitive/academic literacy (Cummins, 1983) has not yet been developed. This study attempted to determine if the Spanish and English reading performance of third grade Spanish dominant students would increase following the development of metacognitive reading strategy training in their dominant language. This experimental study was limited to 95 Spanish dominant children enrolled in the Aldine Independent School District. The ITBS English reading test and the La Prueba Spanish reading test were used as a pre and post measures. Improvement in the mean scores of the experimental group following metacognitive intervention indicated improvement in the reading analysis strategies and reading performance of the children. In addition to these measures, the Burk reading interview was used to measure changes in the students' reading strategy usage in Spanish. The results of the data analysis indicated that all children who participated in the study showed improvement in the area of Spanish and English reading performance..
The influence of native Spanish reading comprehension on English second language reading comprehension of adults
No full textTypescript (photocopy).Foreign students enrolled in intensive language institutes in the United States exhibit differences in the time it takes them to achieve levels of reading comprehension that will enable them to study successfully at college level. Whereas the reading universals hypothesis states that one learns to read once, there are conflicting opinions among reading researchers as to the influence of first language reading ability on second language reading. This study attempted to determine whether first language reading comprehension skills influence the acquisition of second language reading comprehension skills. The study was limited to 79 Latin American students enrolled in the English Language Institute at Texas A&M. Pretests and posttests were given in English and Spanish. The Spanish tests were the InterAmerican Series Reading Comprehension Test, and a Spanish cloze test. The English tests were the TOEFL, the Michigan English Language Proficiency Test, the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Comprehension Test, and an English cloze test. Not all students took all tests. The test results were then compiled and correlation coefficients obtained. The gains made in one semester on the English tests were then calculated for the top Spanish readers and the bottom Spanish readers. The difference in gain scores was significant at .01. The significant correlations between the student's entering Spanish score and his post scores in English (.61, .65, .68; p < .01) also support the influence of first language reading comprehension on the acquisition of second language reading comprehension. The cloze tests were found to have higher correlations with the TOEFL and Michigan total test scores than with the reading scores. The Spanish cloze, except for the most difficult portion, generally had low correlations with other tests, indicating that perhaps the test was testing too low a level of reading as compared to the other tests. The InterAmerican Spanish test and the Gates test had significant correlations with most of the other tests
Adult literacy : effects of a developmental reading program for black college students attending a traditional black college
No full textTypescript (photocopy).It was the purpose of this study to examine the effects of a developmental reading program for black college students attending a traditional black college. Specifically, this study investigated whether the students who received training would score higher on The Nelson-Dennv Reading Test comprehension subtest than the students who did not receive such training. Further, the study examined whether the effects of the training were influenced by age and gender. Students' attitudes toward reading were examined before and after training to determine whether or not there was a change in the attitudes as a consequence of that training. The developmental reading program contained ten separate lessons. These lessons were developed to be delivered in 50-minute sessions for a minimum of 20 hours of training. The training sessions were conducted during the periods scheduled for the regular developmental reading classes in 50 minute sessions for a period of 27 days. Student performance on The Nelson Penny Reading Test comprehension subtest was assessed following the training. Posttest scores on The Nelson-Dennv Reading Test comprehension subtest were submitted to a t test to determine if there were significant differences between group means on the variables of training age and gender. Results of the students' t statistic indicated that there was a significant main effect for the treatment with the trained students scoring higher on the reading comprehension subtest than the untrained students. The performance scores of the trained groups were not influenced by age or gender. There was an appreciable change in attitudes toward reading after training. Conclusions and implications of these findings for adult literacy programs and for teaching reading to this specific category of young adults are discussed, and questions for future research are posed
Towards a hypertext reading/comprehension model
No full textThis paper reports on a study that is concerned with the cognitive
aspects of reading in a hypertext environment. The study focuses
on text based electronic documents. A cognitive model for
hypertext document reading proposed in an earlier work is here
developed and validated with the use of think aloud protocols.
Navigational strategies that readers employ in hypertext reading
and hypertext links' selection are also under study. The results
indicate that 100% of the task related data correspond to the
components of the cognitive model, allowing us to conclude that
the proposed model sufficiently describes the cognitive processes
involved in hypertext reading. In addition, three navigational
strategies are revealed: linear, mixed, and mixed review. The
quantitative data show no significant differences between
different reading goals and comprehension
A comparison of reading vocabulary and reading comprehension skills between bilingual and monolingual Czech-American students
No full textThe study was designed to investigate whether reading achievement differed between bilingual and monolingual students of the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades in several Texas schools where the Czech-American culture is significant. It included seven communities in which 282 students were found to be of a Czech-American background and of this number, 63 were identified as being bilingual. Bilingualism was determined by the ability to answer structured questions presented in the Czech language. Responses could be in either Czech or English. The selected bilinguals and monolinguals were then compared in the factors of sex, chronological age, grade level, reading vocabulary scores, reading comprehension scores, total reading scores, socio-economic status, and intelligence scores. School records were inspected to determine the variables of sex, age, grade, and intelligence scores. To ascertain the level of the three reading variables and socio-economic-status, two instruments were used: the Cooperative Inter-American Reading Test and the Socio-Economic-Status Questionnaire. These were administered during the school year of 1973-1974. Analyses were performed upon the scores of demographic and reading variables for students in the selected categories in order to secure answers to the following five research questions: (1) Is there a significant difference in vocabulary scores between the bilinguals and monolinguals? (2) Is there a significant difference in reading comprehension scores between the bilinguals and monolinguals? (3) Is there a significant difference in total reading scores between the bilinguals and monolinguals? (4) Is sex a significant factor in total reading scores of the bilingual and monolingual groups at the three grade levels in this study? (5) Is there a significant correlation between total reading achievement and socio-economic-status?.
Reading as a perceptual process /
No full textThis book is divided into five sections dealing with various fundamental issues in current research: attention, information processing and eye movement control; the role of phonology in reading; syntax and discourse processing and computational models and simulations. Control and measurement of eye movements form a prominent theme in the book. A full understanding of the where and when of eye movement control is a prerequisite of any complete theory of reading, since it is precisely at this point that perceptual and cognitive processes interact. Amongst the 'hot topics' included are the relation between parafoveal and foveal visual processing of linguistic information, the role of phonology in fluent reading and the emergence of statistical 'tuning' approaches to sentence parsing. Also discussed in the book are three attempts to develop quantitative models of reading which represent a significant departure in theory-building and a quantum step in the maturation of reading research. Much of the work reported in the book was first presented at the 5th European Workshop on Language Comprehension organised in April 1998 which was held at the CNRS Luminy Campus, near Marseilles. All contributions summarise the state-of-the-art in the relevant areas of reading research.Includes bibliographical references and indexes.Section and selected chapter headings: Visual Word Processing. Traces of print along the visual pathway (T.A. Nazir). Processing of Finnish compound words in reading (J. Hyönä, A. Pollatsek). Attention, Information Processing and Eye Movement Control. Relations between spatial and temporal aspects of eye movement control (R. Radach, D. Heller). Eye guidance and the saliency of word beginnings in reading text (W. Vonk et al.). Phonology in Reading. The assembly of phonology in Italian and English: consonants and vowels (L. Colombo). Do readers use phonological codes to activate word meanings? Evidence from eye movements (M. Daneman, E.M. Reingold). Syntax and Discourse Processing. Decoupling syntactic parsing from visual inspection: the case of relative clause attachment in French (J. Pynte, S. Colonna). Unrestricted race: a new model of syntactic ambiguity resolution (R.P.G. van Gompel et al.). Models and Simulations. Eye fixation durations in reading: models of frequency distributions (G.W. McConkie, B.P. Dyre). Subject index.This book is divided into five sections dealing with various fundamental issues in current research: attention, information processing and eye movement control; the role of phonology in reading; syntax and discourse processing and computational models and simulations. Control and measurement of eye movements form a prominent theme in the book. A full understanding of the where and when of eye movement control is a prerequisite of any complete theory of reading, since it is precisely at this point that perceptual and cognitive processes interact. Amongst the 'hot topics' included are the relation between parafoveal and foveal visual processing of linguistic information, the role of phonology in fluent reading and the emergence of statistical 'tuning' approaches to sentence parsing. Also discussed in the book are three attempts to develop quantitative models of reading which represent a significant departure in theory-building and a quantum step in the maturation of reading research. Much of the work reported in the book was first presented at the 5th European Workshop on Language Comprehension organised in April 1998 which was held at the CNRS Luminy Campus, near Marseilles. All contributions summarise the state-of-the-art in the relevant areas of reading research.Print version record.Elsevie
- …
