Reading Comprehension Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

OBJECTIVE: To develop a valid, reliable instrument to measure the functional health literacy of patients. DESIGN: The Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA) was developed using actual hospital materials. The TOFHLA consists... more

OBJECTIVE: To develop a valid, reliable instrument to measure the functional health literacy of patients. DESIGN: The Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA) was developed using actual hospital materials. The TOFHLA consists of a 50-item reading comprehension and 17-item numerical ability test, taking up to 22 minutes to administer. The TOFHLA, the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised (WRAT-R), and the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM) were administered for comparison. A Spanish version was also developed (TOFHLA-S). SETTING: Outpatient settings in two public teaching hospitals. PATIENTS: 256 English- and 249 Spanish-speaking patients were approached. 78% of the English- and 82% of the Spanish-speaking patients gave informed consent, completed a demographic survey, and took the TOFHLA or TOFHLA-S. RESULTS: The TOFHLA showed good correlation with the WRAT-R and the REALM (correlation coefficients 0.74 and 0.84, respectively). Only 52% of the English speakers completed more than 80% of the questions correctly. 15% of the patients could not read and interpret a prescription bottle with instructions to take one pill by mouth four times daily, 37% did not understand instructions to take a medication on an empty stomach, and 48% could not determine whether they were eligible for free care. CONCLUSIONS: The TOFHLA is a valid, reliable indicator of patient ability to read health-related materials. Data suggest that a high proportion of patients cannot perform basic reading tasks. Additional work is needed to determine the prevalence of functional health illiteracy and its effect on the health care experience.

The authors report data from a longitudinal study that addresses the relations between working memory capacity and reading comprehension skills in children aged 8, 9, and 11 years. At each time point, the authors assessed children's... more

The authors report data from a longitudinal study that addresses the relations between working memory capacity and reading comprehension skills in children aged 8, 9, and 11 years. At each time point, the authors assessed children's reading ability, vocabulary and verbal skills, ...

Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment (SLI) were for many years treated as distinct disorders but are now often regarded as different manifestations of the same underlying problem, differing only in severity or... more

Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment (SLI) were for many years treated as distinct disorders but are now often regarded as different manifestations of the same underlying problem, differing only in severity or developmental stage. The merging of these categories has been motivated by the reconceptualization of dyslexia as a language disorder in which phonological processing is deficient. The authors argue that this focus underestimates the independent influence of semantic and syntactic deficits, which are widespread in SLI and which affect reading comprehension and impair attainment of fluent reading in adolescence. The authors suggest that 2 dimensions of impairment are needed to conceptualize the relationship between these disorders and to capture phenotypic features that are important for identifying neurobiologically and etiologically coherent subgroups.

Language and literacy skills were assessed in 83 8 1/2-year olds whose language development had been impaired at 4 years of age. Provided that language problems had resolved by age 5 1/2 years, literacy development was normal, but many of... more

Language and literacy skills were assessed in 83 8 1/2-year olds whose language development had been impaired at 4 years of age. Provided that language problems had resolved by age 5 1/2 years, literacy development was normal, but many of the children who still had verbal deficits at 5 1/2 years of age did have reading difficulties and persisting oral language impairments later on. In these children, reading comprehension tended to be poor relative to reading accuracy. Syntactic competence in the preschool period accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in literacy attainments, after allowing for the effects of non-verbal ability. There were only weak links between expressive phonological disorders and later ability to read either meaningful text or non-words.

We reintroduce a wide-angle view of reading comprehension, the Reading Systems Framework, which places word knowledge in the center of the picture, taking into account the progress made in comprehension research and theory. Within this... more

We reintroduce a wide-angle view of reading comprehension, the Reading Systems Framework, which places word knowledge in the center of the picture, taking into account the progress made in comprehension research and theory. Within this framework, word-to-text integration processes can serve as a model for the study of local comprehension processes, that is, those that make sense out of short stretches of text. These processes require linkage between the word identification system and the comprehension system, with the lexicon in the linking role. Studies of these processes examine the influence of one sentence on the reading of a single word in a second sentence, which enables the integration of the word meaning into the reader's mental model of the text. Skilled comprehenders, more than less skilled, show immediate use of word meanings in the integration process. Other evidence is also consistent with the assumption that word meaning processes are causal components in comprehension skill.

This study investigated reading skills in 41 children with autism spectrum disorder. Four components of reading skill were assessed: word recognition, nonword decoding, text reading accuracy and text comprehension. Overall, levels of word... more

This study investigated reading skills in 41 children with autism spectrum disorder. Four components of reading skill were assessed: word recognition, nonword decoding, text reading accuracy and text comprehension. Overall, levels of word and nonword reading and text ...

Although there is evidence for a close link between the development of oral vocabulary and reading comprehension, less clear is whether oral vocabulary skills relate to the development of word-level reading skills. This study investigated... more

Although there is evidence for a close link between the development of oral vocabulary and reading comprehension, less clear is whether oral vocabulary skills relate to the development of word-level reading skills. This study investigated vocabulary and literacy in 81 children aged 8 to 10 years. In regression analyses, vocabulary accounted for unique variance in exception word reading and reading

"The goal of this investigation was to explore how a fourth grade teacher could integrate iPads into her literacy instruction to simultaneously teach print-based and digital literacy goals. The teacher used iPads for a three-week period... more

"The goal of this investigation was to explore how a fourth grade teacher could integrate iPads into her literacy instruction to simultaneously teach print-based and digital literacy goals. The teacher used iPads for a three-week period during her literacy instruction and selected apps that provided unique approaches to helping the students meet their literacy learning goals.
An explanation of how to develop lessons that meaningfully integrate iPads is presented, as well as lessons learned from the project. Considerations for integrating tablets, such as the iPad, into literacy instruction are provided.
Because iPads and similar tablets are relatively unexplored as tools for literacy learning, this work may provide a foundation for teachers and leaders making decisions about whether mobile devices such as these can be useful in literacy classrooms."

Elementary and middle school children were given a large battery of tests evaluating reading subskills and reading-related cognitive abilities. These measures were used to define latent representing skills and abilities believed to be... more

Elementary and middle school children were given a large battery of tests evaluating reading subskills and reading-related cognitive abilities. These measures were used to define latent representing skills and abilities believed to be important components of ...

This is a review of the research on secondary school reading from 1921-1988. The chapter has five sections. The first section is a brief rationale for separating secondary school reading from research on reading in the lower grades. The... more

This is a review of the research on secondary school reading from 1921-1988. The chapter has five sections. The first section is a brief rationale for separating secondary school reading from research on reading in the lower grades. The second section reviews the experimental research on teaching and learning strategies designed to improve secondary students' learning from text. The third section, which describes the reading practices that have predominated in secondary schools, draws from observational, ethnographic, and survey data. The fourth section provides reasons for the predominance of certain secondary reading practice (interpreted through conceptual and historical research). The last section presents implications for future research in secondary school reading.