Answered Comprehension Questions Research Articles

Metacognitive Knowledge: The Effect of Strategy Evaluation Matrix on University Students’ Reading Comprehension Performance

Understanding written texts is problematic for many university students studying English as a Foreign Language. It is not just about having an extensive vocabulary; students also need tools and strategies to comprehend expository texts. One such tool is the Strategy Evaluation Matrix (SEM), which integrates cognitive strategies and metacognitive knowledge. Research has shown that SEM significantly enhances students' reading comprehension performance. By utilizing SEM, students can improve their understanding of written texts. This study aims to investigate the impact of SEM on students’ reading comprehension performance. To achieve this, a post-test-only nonequivalent control group design was used. Two intact groups from the first semester at the Faculty of Languages, Letters, and Arts, Kenitra, Morocco (FLLAK) were selected. The sample consisted of 66 students in both the control and the experimental groups, using a convenient sampling technique. Data for this study were collected using a TOEFL iBT reading comprehension practice test (i.e. the post-test). Results were analyzed using SPSS version 29 and indicated a significant difference between the experimental and the control groups. Students who were instructed to use SEM while reading and answering comprehension questions scored higher compared to those who did not use it. Therefore, employing SEM in reading comprehension indicates that our educational system should consider integrating psychological tools and theories in the teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language, specifically in the domain of reading comprehension.

The Influence of Format Readability on Children’s Reading Speed and Comprehension

Background: Format readability, including font and spacing, impacts reading metrics in adults, but will the research generalize to children? We examined how eight fonts (four serif and four sans serif) and three-character spacing variations influenced children’s reading comprehension and reading speed. Methods: Fifty-one students in third–fifth grade read 11 narrative text passages on a computer and answered comprehension questions. Passages were randomized in terms of order. First, the font in which the text of each passage was presented was manipulated. Then passages were presented in three spacing manipulations (narrow, normal, and wide). Results: A linear mixed effects model demonstrated that, on a group-level, passages presented in Roboto and Arial font were read significantly faster (words-per-minute) than other fonts. On the individual level, students experienced significant boosts in reading speed (words-per-minute) between their best and worst fitting font, and spacing. A chi-square test showed no one font or spacing setting that was most likely to be a students’ font fit or clash. For reading comprehension, no speed–comprehension tradeoff was observed. Conclusions: Changes to text format at the group and individual level may yield boosts in reading speed for students, without negatively impacting reading comprehension.

The Role of English Language Newspapers in Language Improvement

This article explores the role that English language newspapers play in the improvement of English language. Even though English language newspapers are or may not be primarily designed to improve linguistic skills of learners, there are many ways by which a second-language learner can benefit from them. The newspapers have a variety of columns, ranging from news, views, articles, games, and so on, that are very interesting to the daily lives of readers. At the same time, the newspapers are prepared in such a way that they pass through a rigorous process of editing in terms of the verifiability of their stories and the linguistic formality of their sentences and paragraphs. The newspapers use a wide variety of word class vocabularies, phrases, idioms, and expressions to give metaphorical meanings to their stories. To the English language learner who reads those newspapers on a continuous basis and is given assignments by teachers to discuss, debate, have conversation, and answer comprehension questions from them, the linguistic benefits are enormous. This article explains how learners would be able to boost their vocabulary, reading skills, listening skills, as well as speaking abilities by using English language newspapers.

Learning to Listen: Changes in Children's Brain Activity Following a Listening Comprehension Intervention.

"Are you LISTENING?" may be one of the most frequent questions preschoolers hear from their parents and teachers, but can children be taught to listen carefully-and thus better comprehend language-and if so, what changes occur in their brains? Twenty-seven four- and five-year-old children were taught a language simulation strategy to use while listening to stories: first, they practiced moving graphics on an iPad to correspond to the story actions, and then they practiced imagining the movements. Compared to a control condition, children in the intervention answered comprehension questions more accurately when imagining moving the graphics and on a measure of transfer using a new story without any instruction and with only immovable graphics. Importantly, for children in the intervention, the change in comprehension from the first to the sixth day was strongly correlated with changes in EEG mu and alpha desynchronization, suggesting changes in motor and visual processing following the intervention. Thus, the data are consistent with our hypothesis that a language simulation listening comprehension intervention can improve children's listening comprehension by teaching children to align visual and motor processing with language comprehension.

Reading alphabetic and nonalphabetic writing systems: A case study of bilingual teachers' reading processes through eye movement miscue analysis

AbstractThis case study investigates the reading processes of two bilingual teachers who speak English as a second language and use different first languages—Mandarin Chinese and Korean. The two participants read researcher‐selected digital texts in English and in their respective first language, retold the texts, and answered comprehension questions about the texts. Their reading aloud and eye movements were recorded for miscue and eye movement analysis. Using Eye Movement Miscue Analysis, the findings showcase the distinctive characteristics of their first‐language and second‐language reading processes. The cross‐linguistic comparison between bilingual reading processes further shows the bilingual participants' similarities and differences in terms of the use of language systems, eye movements, language variations, and image use. This study supports the understanding of non‐Roman alphabetical language speakers' reading process, adds to our understanding of the bilingual reading process, and provides teaching and research implications for bilingual teachers and educators.

Oral Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Persons with Alexia and Aphasia

ABSTRACT Purpose This study examined word list and connected text oral reading fluency of persons with alexia and aphasia and whether fluency predicts reading comprehension abilities. Method Twelve individuals with chronic alexia and aphasia and twelve neurotypical, age- and education-matched individuals read aloud real and non word reading lists and paragraphs to elicit measures of fluency. Participants answered comprehension questions following the paragraphs. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and multiple linear regression were used to analyze fluency and comprehension. Results Neurotypical adults read significantly more fluently than persons with alexia and aphasia for word lists and paragraphs. For both participant groups, comprehension was not found to be significantly influenced by oral non word list fluency, oral real word list fluency, or oral paragraph reading fluency. Conclusions Though results are interpreted with caution due to study limitations, the study provides an initial framework for characterizing fluency and comprehension of oral single word list and oral paragraph reading in persons with alexia and aphasia. Clinical implications include caution with use of list reading for assessing reading ability, as well as the need for better assessments for diagnosing alexia.

TEACHING SENTENCE READING AND RETELLING AND ANSWERING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS IN A CHILD WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently show difficulties in the acquisition of multiple repertoires, including verbal behavior. One type of verbal operant behavior is the intraverbal. It involves the emission of a verbal response under the control of a verbal discriminative stimulus, without point-to-point correspondence between them, and the response is maintained by a generalized conditioned reinforcer. This study focused on narrative retelling, which is a skill that comprises intraverbal chains. It is also discussed in the literature that the teaching of this repertoire may improve gains in text comprehension, which also involves the emission of intraverbals, that is, answering questions. Regarding this skill, previous research investigated procedures that may produce the emergence of answering comprehension questions referred as complex ABC intraverbals (related to the stimulus equivalence paradigm) in typically developing children. In general, they were exposed to cycles in which they first read short texts/sentences relating information on three different stimuli (A, B, and C), Thereafter, the children answered several questions representing all possible complex intraverbal relations among the three stimuli from the sentences. Some learners demonstrated the emergence of all complex relations, and further investigations were carried out with the teaching of simpler intraverbal relations of the type of exemplars and categories before the cycles of reading sentences – probing complex ABC intraverbals. Data indicated that more learners showed the emergence of all, or nearly all, complex relations. The present study comprised two systematic replication experiments, with the inclusion of a child with ASD as participant. Both also involved the teaching of sentence reading and retelling through script fading, to analyze the effects of narrative production on the possible emergence of complex intraverbals. In Experiment 1, cycles of teaching sentence reading and retelling – probing ABC intraverbals were administered. As a result, all possible complex relations emerged. Experiment 2 involved the teaching of simpler intraverbal relations of the type of exemplars and categories before the cycles of teaching sentence reading and retelling – probing ABC intraverbals. All possible complex intraverbal relations also emerged. Data were discussed in the sense that, although positive, it is not clear whether the teaching of sentence retelling and simpler intraverbal relations facilitated the establishment of the complex intraverbals. It is possible that reading the sentences was sufficient. The limitations of the research were presented and discussed, as well as recommendations for future investigations that may more clearly isolate the effects of each manipulated independent variable. Anyway, the current study extended previous investigations by showing that complex intraverbal relations of the ABC type may also be established in a learner diagnosed with ASD.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0019/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Enhancing Reading Comprehension for Underprivileged Malaysian ESL Secondary School Students: A Module Development

This research aims to develop a reading comprehension module to enhance the reading skills of underprivileged Malaysian ESL secondary school students. The study employs a quantitative approach consisting of a needs analysis, module development, expert evaluation, and field testing. The needs analysis phase involves identifying the specific requirements of students in terms of reading comprehension. The developed modules integrate six diverse reading comprehension activities, including reading aloud, answering comprehension questions, matching activities, filling in the blanks, categorising materials and solving puzzles based on reading texts. The materials used for module development are sourced from Malaysian English school textbooks. The expert evaluation stage involves the participation of four experienced teachers who complete a module content evaluation questionnaire and a module design validity assessment questionnaire. Their valuable insights and feedback contribute to refining and improving the modules. Adjustments and revisions are made based on the received feedback. The final phase of the research involves testing the developed modules with a sample of 30 underprivileged students from a secondary school in Klang, Selangor, Malaysia. Pre and post-tests are administered to measure the student’s reading comprehension skills before and after module implementation. This research seeks to address the educational needs of underprivileged Malaysian secondary school students by providing them with targeted reading comprehension modules. The findings from this study have the potential to inform educational practices and contribute to the development of tailored interventions aimed at improving reading comprehension skills among underprivileged students in Malaysia.

Will you read how I will read? Naturalistic fMRI predictors of emergent reading

Despite reading being an essential and almost universal skill in the developed world, reading proficiency varies substantially from person to person. To study why, the fMRI field is beginning to turn from single-word or nonword reading tasks to naturalistic stimuli like connected text and listening to stories. To study reading development in children just beginning to read, listening to stories is an appropriate paradigm because speech perception and phonological processing are important for, and are predictors of, reading proficiency. Our study examined the relationship between behavioral reading-related skills and the neural response to listening to stories in the fMRI environment. Functional MRI were gathered in a 3T TIM-Trio scanner. During the fMRI scan, children aged approximately 7 years listened to professionally narrated common short stories and answered comprehension questions following the narration. Analyses of the data used inter-subject correlation (ISC), and representational similarity analysis (RSA). Our primary finding is that ISC reveals areas of increased synchrony in both high- and low-performing emergent readers previously implicated in reading ability/disability. Of particular interest are that several previously identified brain regions (medial temporal gyrus (MTG), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior temporal gyrus (ITG)) were found to “synchronize” across higher reading ability participants, while lower reading ability participants had idiosyncratic activation patterns in these regions. Additionally, two regions (superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and another portion of ITG) were recruited by all participants, but their specific timecourse of activation depended on reading performance. These analyses support the idea that different brain regions involved in reading follow different developmental trajectories that correlate with reading proficiency on a spectrum rather than the usual dichotomy of poor readers versus strong readers.

Unknown Vocabulary Density and Reading Comprehension: Replicating Hu and Nation (2000)

AbstractHu and Nation's (2000) study, which stipulated that second language (L2) readers need to be familiar with 98% of lexical items for adequate text comprehension, has become highly influential in L2 vocabulary research and pedagogy. However, the 98% critical threshold figure is based on findings from a research project in which a regression analysis was conducted with only 66 university students in New Zealand. The present study replicated Hu and Nation's research in a context different from a typical Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic context with a sample of 104 Sri Lankan adult L2 learners in a nonacademic context. They each took a Vocabulary Levels Test and read one of five versions of two reading texts at different levels of density of unknown words before answering comprehension questions. The results of the original study could not be fully replicated.

Written Retelling Strategy in Improving Reading Skill among ESL Students in Malaysia

Skills of reading and comprehending in English are crucial for academic success in schools. Pupils with low reading ability skill may result in obtaining low grades and poor test scores. Traditionally pupils are taught to lift specific information as a reading strategy to answer comprehension questions, comparatively, this study uses retelling strategy to evaluate pupils’ understanding. Past research indicated that retelling strategy enhances accuracy and greater comprehension. Thus, far study that investigates effectiveness of this strategy remains scarce in Malaysian English as Second Language (ESL) primary schools. As reading skill starts to develop in early stage of schooling, it is deemed necessary to conduct this study among primary level pupils. The present study specifically analyzes the effects of written retelling strategy on pupils’ understanding of story structure among year three primary school pupils in Malaysian ESL classroom. A quasiexperimental research design with pretest and posttest was adopted to carry out the study. Pretest and posttest questions consisting of structural comprehension questions and written retelling were used to measure the effects of written retelling strategy on the pupils’ achievement in reading comprehension and their understanding of the story structure. A pretest was conducted before teaching and learning took place. This was followed by a posttest. An independent t-test was used to obtain the mean values and standard deviations. The results obtained in this study conclude the written retelling strategy had notably improved the pupils’ reading skill as they are able to retain information from the story and make better predictions. Subsequently, it increased their abilities in answering the comprehension questions. The results also indicate that written retelling could be a prospective reading strategy along with other strategies for primary ESL learners in Malaysia and similar context.

The influence of temporal information on online processing of counterfactual conditional sentences: Evidence from ERPs on temporal indicators

This study investigated how temporal information influences online processing of Chinese counterfactual sentences. Participants read four types of counterfactuals for answering comprehension questions. The temporal information of the event described in the conditional (antecedent) and the one in the result clause (consequent) varied. The temporal sequence was defined as chronological for a past event in the antecedent and a present event in the consequent and as reverse-chronological for a future event in the antecedent and present event in the consequent. The temporal distance was defined for the event in the antecedent as being long or short-distance from the consequent. ERP results showed a larger N400 and late positivity on the temporal indicator of the consequent in the reverse-chronological condition than the chronological condition. The effect of the temporal distance was observed on the late positivity only when the temporal sequence was reversed. The response time was delayed when the comprehension question followed a reverse-chronological vs. chronological condition and was delayed in the long-vs. short-distance condition when the temporal sequence was reversed. These findings suggest that the reverse-chronological sequence could demand a greater effort in integrating the given temporal information onto the constraint of the mental timeline during the online processing of counterfactuals. A conflict monitoring is triggered to execute the remapping process and such demand is larger when a larger time shift is demanded in the long distance condition. The temporal sequence and temporal distance could differ in their status during online comprehension of counterfactuals, with the temporal sequence serving as a more relevant cue than the temporal distance. These findings highlight the role of temporal information in counterfactual sentence comprehension.

Do RESTful API design rules have an impact on the understandability of Web APIs?

ContextWeb APIs are one of the most used ways to expose application functionality on the Web, and their understandability is important for efficiently using the provided resources. While many API design rules exist, empirical evidence for the effectiveness of most rules is lacking.ObjectiveWe therefore wanted to study 1) the impact of RESTful API design rules on understandability, 2) if rule violations are also perceived as more difficult to understand, and 3) if demographic attributes like REST-related experience have an influence on this.MethodWe conducted a controlled Web-based experiment with 105 participants, from both industry and academia and with different levels of experience. Based on a hybrid between a crossover and a between-subjects design, we studied 12 design rules using API snippets in two complementary versions: one that adhered to a rule and one that was a violation of this rule. Participants answered comprehension questions and rated the perceived difficulty.ResultsFor 11 of the 12 rules, we found that violation performed significantly worse than rule for the comprehension tasks. Regarding the subjective ratings, we found significant differences for 9 of the 12 rules, meaning that most violations were subjectively rated as more difficult to understand. Demographics played no role in the comprehension performance for violation.ConclusionsOur results provide first empirical evidence for the importance of following design rules to improve the understandability of Web APIs, which is important for researchers, practitioners, and educators.

A Mixed-Methods Exploration of the Experience of People With Aphasia Using Text-to-Speech Technology to Support Virtual Book Club Participation.

This mixed-methods research sought to examine the experience of people with aphasia who used text-to-speech (TTS) support to read a novel for virtual book club participation. Six people with chronic aphasia used a TTS system to review portions of a novel about which they conversed during eight virtual book club meetings occurring over 5 weeks. During one-on-one interactions prior to each meeting, participants answered comprehension questions and provided feedback about reading experiences. Then, during group meetings, they reviewed and discussed relevant book content and predicted upcoming content. During a structured individual interview, participants reflected on their supported reading and book club experience. Participants reported a range of reading confidence prior to study participation, mostly influenced by decreased comprehension or reading speed. After book club participation, four participants expressed increased confidence. Some reported searching for key words and skipping difficult words as strategies additional to TTS support. All reviewed at least some book sections more than once either with or without TTS support. Highly motivated participants expressed low frustration and high reading ease and enjoyment. Perceived comprehension was roughly consistent with actual comprehension across participants. Most believed TTS support promoted faster reading than otherwise possible. Participants liked adjustable features affecting speech output rate, word or sentence highlighting, and font size. Psychosocial benefits included decreased isolation and increased friendship. The findings extend previous evidence about perceived and actual benefits associated with TTS support. People with aphasia express positive experiences when given TTS support during book club participation.

The effects of the repeated reading method from teachers’ perspectives of cycle one schools (1-4)

The ability to read during the early years of education plays a crucial role in students’ academic life. However, Cycle One Omani students continue to face significant challenges in reading fluently and comprehending texts. Many students struggle to read the assigned texts within a reasonable time, which negatively affects their ability to answer comprehension questions. This research paper focuses on grade three and four teachers’ opinion in North Al-Batinah Governorate regarding the repeated reading method, which they have been implementing in their classrooms for over six years. A designed and validated online questionnaire, to which 121 teachers responded was used to collect data. The study revealed that the majority of the participants strongly agreed on the effectiveness of the RR method in enhancing grade three and four students’ English language learning skills, particularly their reading fluency and overall English proficiency. Moreover, the data showed that RR is an effective, new and useful method, which made the teaching environment more interesting and broke the usual routine of teaching the reading skill. In addition, the results indicated that most grade three and four students enjoyed the RR experience and were motivated and eager when applying the RR method. Therefore, this study is one of the few in Oman to have investigated primary students’ reading skill, so it makes a distinguished contribution to the Omani context with regard to investigating young learners’ reading skills and strategies.

Evaluating the efficacy of NoteAid on EHR note comprehension among US Veterans through Amazon Mechanical Turk

ObjectiveLow health literacy is a concern among US Veterans. In this study, we evaluated NoteAid, a system that provides lay definitions to medical jargon terms in EHR notes to help Veterans comprehend EHR notes. We expected that low initial scores for Veterans would be improved by using NoteAid. Materials and MethodsWe recruited Veterans from the Amazon Mechanical Turk crowd work platform (MTurk). We also recruited non-Veterans from MTurk as a control group for comparison. We randomly split recruited MTurk Veteran participants into control and intervention groups. We recruited non-Veteran participants into mutually exclusive control or intervention tasks on the MTurk platform. We showed participants de-identified EHR notes and asked them to answer comprehension questions related to the notes. We provided participants in the intervention group with EHR note content processed with NoteAid, while NoteAid was not available for participants in the control group. ResultsWe recruited 94 Veterans and 181 non-Veterans. NoteAid leads to a significant improvement for non-Veterans but not for Veterans. Comparing Veterans recruited via MTurk with non-Veterans recruited via MTurk, we found that without NoteAid, Veterans have significantly higher raw scores than non-Veterans. This difference is not significant with NoteAid. DiscussionThat Veterans outperform a comparable population of non-Veterans is a surprising outcome. Without NoteAid, scores on the test are already high for Veterans, therefore, minimizing the ability of an intervention such as NoteAid to improve performance. With regards to Veterans, understanding the health literacy of Veterans has been an open question. We show here that Veterans score higher than a comparable, non-Veteran population. ConclusionVeterans on MTurk do not see improved scores when using NoteAid, but they already score high on the test, significantly higher than non-Veterans. When evaluating NoteAid, population specifics need to be considered, as performance may vary across groups. Future work investigating the effectiveness of NoteAid on improving comprehension with local Veterans and developing a more difficult test to assess groups with higher health literacy is needed.

Comprehension of double-center embedded relatives in Italian: a case for hierarchical intervention

Object relatives are more difficult to process than subject relatives. Several sentence processing models have been proposed to explain this difference. As double-center embedding relatives contain several long-distance dependencies, they are an ideal configuration to compare sentence processing models. The main aim of the present study was to compare the predictions of the featural Relativized Minimality approach with the ones of other relevant sentence processing models. 57 Italian-speaking healthy adults answered comprehension questions concerning the first, second, or third verb to appear in both double-center embedding and control sentences. Results show that questions concerning the matrix verb of double-center embedding structures were significantly easier and were associated with faster response times than questions concerning the embedded verbs. Furthermore, in object double-center embedding relatives the questions concerning the verb of the most embedded clause were easier than the ones concerning the verb of the intermediate embedded clause. This pattern of results is consistent with featural Relativized Minimality but cannot be fully explained by other sentence processing models.

The effects of augmented reality storybooks on student's reading comprehension

The aim of this study is to compare reading comprehension levels of two groups of students—an experimental and a control group—who read the same texts in course books using either augmented reality technique or traditional reading technique. Barrett's taxonomy, which proposes a classification of reading comprehension, consisting of literal comprehension, reorganization, inferential comprehension, evaluation and appreciation, was used to determine the reading comprehension levels of the students. The texts based on the augmented reality were produced with an augmented reality application developed by the authors using the Kotlin programming language. The participants of the study were 120 students aged 11–12 who attend a secondary school in Antalya (Turkey). In the pre‐test phase, both the experimental and control groups read the same texts from the course book and answered the comprehension questions. In the post‐test, the experimental group read the augmented reality texts using tablets while the control group read the texts in the traditional way. Then both groups answered comprehension questions. The results of the pre‐test revealed that there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of their total comprehension scores and their reading comprehension levels. The post‐test results indicated that the experimental group's overall comprehension scores were much higher than those of the control group. In terms of reading comprehension levels, no difference was found between the two groups in terms of literal comprehension levels. However, the experimental group is found to be much more successful in terms of the reorganization, inferential comprehension, evaluation and appreciation. These findings suggest that the augmented reality content may contribute to the students' reading comprehension performances. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic? There is limited research that augmented reality applications can support reading comprehension in general. Little is known about the effect of augmented reality applications on reading comprehension levels. In the researches examining the effect of augmented reality applications on the reading comprehension levels of students, the existing augmented reality applications were generally preferred. What this paper adds? This study aims to develop an augmented reality application that can be integrated into the textbooks used in schools. In this study, Barrett's taxonomy was used to reveal which levels of reading comprehension the augmented reality application could support. Augmented reality supported reading activity supports students' reorganization, inferential comprehension, evaluation and appreciation levels. Augmented reality supported reading activity does not make a difference in students' literal comprehension levels. Implications for practice and/or policy The developed augmented reality application can be used as a teaching tool in schools. The study provides an example of how augmented reality can be used in reading activity in schools. The data of this study can be used by teachers who want to support students' levels of reorganization, inferential comprehension, evaluation and appreciation comprehension.

Learning across media in a second language

The present study investigated the impact of the medium on learning in L2. Specifically, learning performances from L2 material were compared across three media: text, video, and subtitled video. The participants were 126 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned across three conditions: a text condition, a video condition, and a subtitles condition. First, students were asked to complete three questionnaires on control variables. Second, students were asked to read/watch a learning material and answer comprehension, recall, transfer, and calibration questions twice: immediately and a week after. Results reveal that the participants in the video condition outperformed those in the text condition in delayed comprehension and recall. Overall, learning performances were substantially equivalent across media when assessed immediately after processing the material, but subtitled videos had the potential to boost deeper learning performances only in highly skilled learners.

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.