Does It Really Matter? The Effect of Script Instruction on First Graders’ Reading Performance in Hebrew: Typical Versus At-Risk Readers*

Purpose This study examined resilience mechanisms influencing Grade 9 reading fluency and reading comprehension skills. Performance in reading fluency and comprehension in Grade 1 (age 7–8 years) was considered a risk factor for Grade 9 (age 15–16 years) reading performance. We focused on the potential promotive and protective effects of cognitive skills, motivational and parental factors, and gender on reading. Promotive factors benefit all individuals regardless of their level of risk, while protective factors generate more benefit for individuals at higher risk compared with those at lower risk. Method Data from a longitudinal Finnish sample of approximately 2,000 individuals were analyzed. Promotive and protective factors were examined separately for reading fluency and comprehension. Promotive factors were identified as main effects while controlling for Grade 1 performance. Protective factors were identified based on significant interactions with the risk factor, i.e. Grade 1 reading fluency and comprehension skills, and the signaling of gap-closing effects between those at lower and higher risk. Results Most examined skills and factors were identified as promotive factors for reading fluency and comprehension. Four protective factors emerged for reading fluency: pre-literacy skills, arithmetic fluency, oral language, and homework persistence. Oral language was identified as a protective factor for reading comprehension. Two additional significant interactions emerged for reading fluency: parental teaching of reading and parental support with reading-related homework, but they did not conform to the classic protective factor model. Conclusion This study advances the application of constructs indicating resilience in reading research and sheds light on factors that provide promotive and protective support for early reading skills development.

L2 reading fluency and accuracy are crucial aspects of second language (L2) acquisition, as they directly influence cognitive processing and overall reading comprehension. Developing these skills enables learners to engage with texts efficiently and build confidence in their reading abilities. This study uses reading software to examine the relationship between reading fluency and accuracy in the L2 learning context. Two primary research questions were addressed: the correlation between reading fluency and accuracy and potential gender-based differences in reading performance metrics, including reading time, comprehension, and developmental progress. Pearson’s correlation analysis revealed a strong, positive relationship between fluency and accuracy, indicating that improvements in one skill are associated with enhancements in the other. Additionally, fluency and accuracy were positively correlated with reading comprehension and developmental measures, underscoring the interconnected nature of these skills. Gender comparisons, analyzed through independent t-tests, indicated no significant differences in reading software engagement or performance. This suggests the software provides equitable support across genders, enabling consistent skill development in fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. The findings highlight the critical role of technology in facilitating balanced reading instruction and offer insights into its potential to address diverse learner needs effectively.

This study explored the impact of explicit teaching of reading strategies on English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students’ reading performance in Iran. The study employed a questionnaire adapted from Chamot and O’Malley’s (1994) cognitive and metacognitive strategies framework. To test the effects of explicit teaching of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies on reading performance and strategy transfer, the study has a quasi-experimental design involving a contrast group and a treatment group, with whom an intervention program was implemented. The treatment group achieved significantly better results than the contrast group after four months of strategy-based instruction. Results of paired-sample t-tests and independent t-tests and effect size showed that reading comprehension and reading strategy use improved with strategy instruction. Moreover, SPANOVA analyses showed that the participants in the treatment group performed better than those in the contrast group in reading comprehension and reading strategy transfer. Results also showed that strategy instruction contributed to autonomous reading behaviors. Recommendations for further research are discussed.

The goal of improving reading rate and fluency is to positively impact reading comprehension; however, it is unclear how fast students with learning disabilities (LD) need to read to reap this benefit. The purpose of this research was to identify the point of diminishing return for students who were dysfluent readers. Participants included 337 students with reading difficulties in second and fourth grade (61% eligible for special education; 80% with a diagnosis of LD in the area of reading) and 150 typical readers from the same general education classes. LOESS (LOcal regrESSion) plots (logistic regression) were used to determine where linear relations between reading rate and comprehension broke down for these students: the rate at which getting faster no longer contributed clearly to reading comprehension improvement. Although typical readers in this sample showed patterns of oral reading rate and comprehension similar to students in other studies, patterns for students with reading difficulties differed. For dysfluent readers, improving reading rate improved comprehension only in the bands between 35 and 75 words correct per minute in second grade and between 40 and 90 words correct in fourth grade. Reading at faster rates revealed no clear advantage for reading comprehension.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between anxiety and performance on measures of reading fluency and reading comprehension in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students. The study found that there is a significant negative correlation between social anxiety and reading comprehension but no significant correlation between social anxiety and reading fluency. These findings further demonstrate the distinction between the cognitive processes that underlie reading fluency and reading comprehension. The results also align with the tenets of Processing Efficiency Theory in that more complex tasks that significantly tax working memory (like reading comprehension) are more likely affected by anxiety than those tasks that do not rely as heavily on working memory (such as reading fluency). The Effect of Anxiety on the Measurement of Reading Fluency and Comprehension With increased federal and state mandates for accountability, schools are increasing their efforts to insure quality instruction and positive student outcomes through frequent progress monitoring. Due to its impact on many academic areas, students’ reading has received the most focus and attention in these efforts. As such, it is essential to insure that assessment for classroom monitoring and decision-making is maximally reliable, valid, and interpreted correctly. In this regard, the current study investigated the effects of anxiety on the measurement of student reading fluency and comprehension. Based on the literature supporting Processing Efficiency Theory, the researchers hypothesized that students’ assessed anxiety would have a greater influence on students’ reading comprehension than their reading fluency.

As stated in the literature, it is widely accepted that reading fluency and comprehension are critical components of English learning. Reading fluency, which refers to a person's ability to read a text quickly and accurately, is a necessary skill for students when learning English, and numerous studies on reading fluency and comprehension have been conducted. However, research on the relationship between reading fluency and reading comprehension at the high school level is still uncommon. Therefore, this research sought to determine the relationship between students' reading fluency and reading comprehension. This study took a quantitative approach, collecting data from 36 students in Class XI IPA 1 at UPT SMA Negeri 3 Empat Lawang using an oral reading fluency test and a reading comprehension test. The data were analysed using the Person Product-Moment correlation analysis in SPSS Version 20 for Windows. This study found a strong correlation between reading fluency and reading comprehension (0.000<0.829). The higher the reading fluency of students, the higher their reading comprehension achievement will be. On the contrary, the lower the reading fluency of students, the lower their reading comprehension achievement. The implications of the study’s findings and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

The need for research-based instructional support for culturally and linguistically diverse students with reading difficulties is a national priority. In this rural Hawaii study, teachers and parents selected four first-grade students who were experiencing delays in reading fluency and comprehension skills to receive tutoring and video self-modeling interventions. Two students were identified as having specific learning disabilities, one as being developmentally delayed, and one was in the process of being referred for special education. Community partners were trained to provide tutoring with the 25-step ACE reading protocol. Two 2-minute self-modeling videotapes were constructed: the first depicted the student fluently reading a passage; the second showed the student applying a story map and successfully answering comprehension questions. A multiple-baseline design across two behaviors (reading fluency and comprehension) was used to observe the effect of each intervention on reading fluency and comprehension skills. Reading fluency, measured in number of correct words per minute, doubled for three students and quadrupled for the fourth by the end of eight weeks. Reading comprehension, measured in number of correct responses, reached pre-established criteria. Viewing the self-modeling videotapes was associated with reduced variability and maintenance of increased performance. Follow-up indicated that gains maintained for six months. Teachers and parents reported generalization to classroom and home.

The present study aimed to investigate the role of procedural and content repetition in enhancing intermediate EFL learners’ reading fluency (measured by reading rate) and comprehension. To this end, 45 intermediate EFL learners were recruited and randomly divided into three groups: procedural repetition (PR), content repetition (CR), and control group. Through adopting an experimental design, the data for reading comprehension and fluency were respectively collected by pre- and posttests of reading and the number of words read per minute and analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and paired-samples t-test. The findings demonstrated that content and procedural repetition improved EFL learners’ reading comprehension, although procedural repetition was more effective. Nevertheless, repetition tasks could not improve the reading rate. Therefore, course designers, material developers, and language teachers are recommended to use procedural and content repetition to design and develop the reading tasks and activities or teach reading comprehension to EFL/ESL learners.

Reading is one of the most valuable skills of the human being. This complex behavior is composed of several distinct and separable subskills. Furthermore, different theories of reading methods have been proposed and each language has a different paradigm depending on its writing system. Apparently, the most common method among these is the one-to-one correspondence between phoneme and grapheme. However, this method has some drawbacks. According to Ahri and Snowling (2004), if the sequential decoding strategy is slow and inefficient it overloads the memory leading to inaccurate pronunciation and lack of associative meaning. As a result of repeated exposure to printed words, children's knowledge of spelling patterns is expanded to facilitate its retrieval of meaning. To clarify the role of decoding in reading and reading disability, a simple model of reading is proposed. According to the Simple View (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), reading ability can result from the combination of decoding and comprehension. In this view, reading comprehension is conceptualized as the product of two interrelated -but relatively independent- cognitive processes, that are, decoding (or word recognition) and listening comprehension (or language comprehension). Both of them are necessary cognitive components, and neither alone is sufficient for successful reading comprehension. In addition to word recognition problems, many reading-disabled individuals were found to have impaired reading comprehension. Although the central role of phonological deficits in word recognition difficulties has been widely demonstrated, the role of language abilities in the reading profile of dyslexic individuals has not been fully captured. Dyslexia, also known as specific reading disability, has been defined as one of several distinct learning disabilities that reading performance is markedly below what is expected in normally achieving readers (Siegel, 1992). In some studies, the existence of lexical problems in dyslexic children has been investigated. It has been shown that the level of lexical and semantic ability of children affects their reading comprehension. For example, some have explained that the breadth and depth of children's lexical knowledge affect their ability to recognize words. Additionally, there is evidence that has consistently established a strong association between language competence and reading abilities. In particular, oral vocabulary (measured with an oral receptive/expressive measure or a word definition measure) and semantic skills (measured with a synonym judgment task) were found to be concurrent and longitudinal predictors of word recognition and reading comprehension. Further contribution of oral vocabulary and semantic skills on reading comprehension in these studies provide clear support for the position that reading comprehension involves language comprehension beyond word recognition. Likewise, there are several studies about effective factors in reading. Some believe that vocabulary and syntactic ability play an important role in children's reading ability. There is also evidence that language skills such as syntactic complexity and lexical skills in 2 and 3-years old children are important predictors of their reading accuracy and comprehension in the future. Most of the research about the factors that affect reading has been in English. Hence, because of the different clarity in the orthography of different languages (from transparent to opaque languages), it is necessary to investigate these children in different languages. The present study aims to convey the relationship between reading skills and syntactic and lexical abilities in dyslexic and normal Persian-speaking children. For conducting this research, after issuing necessary licenses, primary school children with dyslexia were identified by referring to learning disorder schools in Tehran. After evaluating and diagnosing the dyslexic children by a psychologist and a speech therapist, 16 dyslexic students were selected. The Syntax Comprehension Test, Grammar Expression Test, vocabulary subtest of TOLD 3:P, and the reading test were then performed in different sessions. The results of the tests were recorded and the data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical package. According to the results of the present study, there is a significant difference in reading skills and syntactic and lexical abilities between dyslexic and normal Persian-speaking children. The results show that there is no significant correlation between reading skills and syntactic abilities. However, regarding lexical abilities in the dyslexic group, there is a significant correlation between the picture vocabulary and speed and accuracy of reading, between relational vocabulary and speed of reading, and also between oral vocabulary and reading accuracy and text comprehension (p <0.05). Moreover, there is a significant correlation between reading irregular words and two other tasks (picture vocabulary and oral vocabulary), but there is no significant correlation between reading non-words and oral vocabulary, and picture vocabulary and relational vocabulary. Therefore, strengthening the lexical ability of dyslexic children, in addition to improving their reading skill's accuracy and fluency, is essential for reading words especially irregular words.

Introduction: We can quickly access information in the modern world. Therefore, it is critical to concurrently improve reading fluency and comprehension skills. Techniques used to improve reading fluency can be categorized into two groups: skill-and performance-based. Interventional techniques used before, during, and after reading reportedly improve reading comprehension skills. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a series of interventions that combine skill and performance-based reading fluency techniques with reading comprehension techniques used during and after reading in improving reading fluency and comprehension skills of an intellectually disabled student. The uniqueness of this study is that it focuses on a child with intellectual disability, and it combines fluent reading and reading comprehension techniques. Method: This was a case study featuring a 13 year old male student enrolled in the sixth grade of a middle school who received interventions in a special education class for mild intellectual disability in Turkey. The intervention series was applied in ten sessions Findings: As a result of the interventions, there was a decrease in the number of misread words and increase in the number of correctly read words and reading comprehension level compared to the baseline values. The student maintained the acquisitions he gained during the intervention and in the following weeks. Discussion: In conclusion, the intervention package developed for an intellectual disability student was effective in improving and maintaining the student”s reading fluency and reading comprehension skills. Further studies with larger samples are needed to test the generalizability of the results.

Problem Many students are failing to become proficient readers with current instructional methods used in American schools. Students frequently make improvements in two of fluency’s dimensions, rate and accuracy, but these improvements have not consistently correlated to improvements in reading comprehension, which is the objective of reading. The automaticity plus prosody (APP) model was developed by this researcher from Topping’s deep processing fluency model to explain why teaching and assessing the multiple dimensions of fluency (rate, accuracy, and prosody) improve comprehension. The purpose of this study was to compare students in a private school in a small town in southwestern Michigan who received a treatment of only repeated reading and self- graphing with students who received a treatment of repeated reading, self-graphing, and an instructional focus of prosody. Method An experimental pretest-posttest with control group design was used in this study. Participants were members of a class of third-grade students (n=20) from a private school in southwestern Michigan. The control group consisted of half the students (n=10), and the treatment group consisted of the remainder of the students (n=10). Students were initially matched based on their teacher’s informal assessment results for reading comprehension and reading fluency based on the students’ raw scores from the MASI-R Oral Reading Fluency Measures and CORE Reading Maze Comprehension Test . One student from each matched pair was then randomly assigned to the treatment or control group. The students were trained to engage in repeated reading using fiction passages at their independent reading level. Students in the intervention group were also taught lessons with an instructional focus on prosody. The study consisted of 21 sessions, 20-30 minutes per session, 3 days per week, over 7 weeks. Reading comprehension and dimensions of fluency (rate, accuracy, and prosody) were the dependent variables. These variables were measured with the AIMS-web Maze-CBM, the AIMS-web R-CBM, and the Multidimensional Fluency Scale. Results One between (treatment) and within subjects (test period) ANOVA indicated that treatment and interaction (treatment by test period) effects for all dependent variables (rate, accuracy, prosody, and reading comprehension) were not statistically significant at the 0.05 level. However, test period main effect was statistically significant for three of the four dependent variables (p&lt;0.05). No significant changes over test periods were found for accuracy. For prosody (F(3,60) = 6.30, p= .001, ɳ2 =.26), and rate F(1.85, 36.91) = 13.09, p&lt;.001, ɳ2 =.42), significant increases took place between test period 2 (week 3) and test period 3 (week 6). For reading comprehension (F(3,60)=33.20, p&lt;.001, ɳ2 =.65), significant change was observed between test periods 3 and 4. These results indicate that students improved in rate, prosody, and reading comprehension regardless of whether or not they received instruction on prosody. Thus, for this group of third-grade students, prosody instruction appears to be not effective in helping students improve reading fluency and comprehension. Conclusions The APP model, as applied to reading development, was supported by the results. Repeated reading with self-graphing, which was done with students in both the control and intervention groups, developed students’ basic fluency through appropriate, successful practice that led to automaticity. These gains in automaticity contributed to higher comprehension and oral expression, both of which are elements of expressive fluency. Whereas non-significant results did not show an instructional focus on prosody- created heightened levels of fluency or comprehension, the length of the study, the small sample size, and other limitations may have mitigated against adequate opportunity to identify differences between the groups. This study did confirm that students’ fluency and comprehension levels can be significantly raised in a short period of time.

The present study aimed to assess the effect of age and gender on second-grade children’s reading performance. Two hundred and eighty-seven children aged 7.1–8.2 years were divided into two age subgroups (the younger, 85–91 months and the older, 92–98 months) and were examined in reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension tasks. Results showed a significant effect of age in reading performance, with the older children having better scores than younger ones for reading fluency, reading comprehension, and the total reading performance. Gender was not found to play an important role in reading performance. The findings are discussed on the ground of functional brain development and the different rates of cerebral maturation.

Language comprehension is often affected in individuals with post-stroke aphasia. However, deficits in auditory comprehension are not fully correlated with deficits in reading comprehension and the mechanisms underlying this dissociation remain unclear. This distinction is important for understanding language mechanisms, predicting long-term impairments and future development of treatment interventions. Using comprehensive auditory and reading measures from a large cohort of individuals with aphasia, we evaluated the relationship between aphasia type and reading comprehension impairments, the relationship between auditory versus reading comprehension deficits and the crucial neuroanatomy supporting the dissociation between post-stroke reading and auditory deficits. Scores from the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised from 70 participants with aphasia after a left-hemisphere stroke were utilized to evaluate both reading and auditory comprehension of linguistically equivalent stimuli. Repeated-measures and univariate ANOVA were used to assess the relationship between auditory comprehension and aphasia types and correlations were employed to test the relationship between reading and auditory comprehension deficits. Lesion-symptom mapping was used to determine the dissociation of crucial brain structures supporting reading comprehension deficits controlling for auditory deficits and vice versa. Participants with Broca's or global aphasia had the worst performance on reading comprehension. Auditory comprehension explained 26% of the variance in reading comprehension for sentence completion and 44% for following sequential commands. Controlling for auditory comprehension, worse reading comprehension performance was independently associated with damage to the inferior temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, posterior inferior temporal gyrus, inferior occipital gyrus, lingual gyrus and posterior thalamic radiation. Auditory and reading comprehension are only partly correlated in aphasia. Reading is an integral part of daily life and directly associated with quality of life and functional outcomes. This study demonstrated that reading performance is directly related to lesioned areas in the boundaries between visual association regions and ventral stream language areas. This behavioural and neuroanatomical dissociation provides information about the neurobiology of language and mechanisms for potential future treatment interventions.

Being able to read at a fluent rate confers many advantages on an individual in both educational and wider social contexts throughout life. To be a fluent reader means that the individual can sustain high accuracy while reading at a rate appropriate to the material and the setting, and implies the development of automaticity in the cognitive processes involved in reading. Fluency has not, however, been the focus of much research. In this study, an observational learning technique — feedforward video self-modelling (FFVSM) — was used to improve children's reading fluency. Eleven primary (elementary) school children aged between 72 and 108 months, four girls and seven boys, viewed edited video footage of themselves seemingly reading a difficult text at a fluent rate six times over a 2-week period. Reading performance (accuracy, comprehension and rate) was measured at pre- and post-test using the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability, and fluency and comprehension scores were measured across the intervention period using the Science Research Associates Reading Laboratory (SRA) graded reading texts. The results showed that the majority of the children improved their reading fluency, comprehension and accuracy as well as reader self-perception (a proxy measure of self-efficacy). These positive results suggest that FFVSM could be a rapid, cost-effective intervention to be used within educational settings to promote fluent reading.

To be successful, students must have excellent reading abilities, as reading is the most important skill for achieving high levels of learning and personal development. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of using audio-visual aids to develop reading fluency and comprehension among English language students of the University of Jeddah. This quantitative research employed a quasi-experimental method. Data were collected from a reading comprehension test and a reading fluency test, measuring students’ word count per minute. Participants were divided into four groups, two each (a control group and experimental group) of men and women students. The men and women experimental groups comprised 26 students each, while the control groups comprised 24 and 28 students, respectively. The experimental groups watched videos to activate their thinking before reading the passage, and then read comprehension passages. Contrarily, the control groups were taught conventionally. Two achievement tests were used as pre-test and post-test to determine the improvement in the experimental groups. Independent- and paired samples t-tests were performed to compare the results of the two groups, which showed that the experimental groups outperformed the control groups in reading comprehension and reading fluency (p &lt; .05). This study also investigated the differences between men and women regarding reading fluency and reading comprehension; the results did not show any differences between them (p &gt; 0.05). These positive results shows that video and audio are effective for students in developing and supporting their reading fluency and comprehension. Therefore, it could be integrated and combined with traditional textbooks as supporting material to enhance reading skills among English language students.