Search results for "Reading comprehension"

Letter knowledge predicts Grade 4 reading fluency and reading comprehension

2008

Abstract The present study examined the predictors of fourth graders' reading skills (reading comprehension, text reading and word chain reading). Reading skill antecedents of 158 children of 5–6 years of age were measured at the beginning of kindergarten; students' reading skills were measured in kindergarten and in Grades 1 and 4. The results showed that children's letter knowledge at the beginning of kindergarten was the most powerful predictor of their reading skills at the end of Grade 4. Other predictors were metacognitive awareness, gender, mother's level of education, and visual attention. Phonological awareness at kindergarten affected reading skills at Grade 4 through reading skil…

Maternal literacy teaching, causal attributions and children’s literacy skills in Finnish-speaking and language minority families

2016

Abstract This study investigated the effect of mothers’ (language minority group mothers, LM, n = 49, and Finnish speaking mothers, MP, n = 368) literacy teaching at home, and mothers’ causal attributions of their children’s (mean age 11.48 years) literacy skills at fourth grade in Finland. For Finnish speaking mothers, results showed a negative correlation between the amount of literacy taught at home and children’s performance on reading tests i.e., more teaching was associated with poorer performance and vice versa. Also, the more MP mothers measured their children’s success by their ability, the better their children performed in reading comprehension tests. In the LM group, maternal li…

Literacy skills and online research and comprehension: struggling readers face difficulties online

2019

The present study evaluated the extent to which literacy skills (reading fluency, written spelling, and reading comprehension), together with nonverbal reasoning, prior knowledge, and gender, are related to students’ online research and comprehension (ORC) performance. The ORC skills of 426 sixth graders were measured using a Finnish adaptation of the Online Research and Comprehension Assessment. Results of a structural equation model showed that these ORC skills were divided into six highly correlated factors, and that they formed a common factor in ORC. Altogether, these predictor variables explained 57% of the variance in ORC. Reading comprehension, along with gender, was the strongest p…

Self-Regulation and Link Selection Strategies in Hypertext

2010

This article explores the role of self-regulation in strategies that readers use to decide the order in which to read the different sections of a hypertext. This study explored 3 main strategies for link selection based on (a) link screen position, (b) link interest, and (c) the semantic relation of a link with the section just read. This study followed Winne's (1995, 2001) model of self-regulated learning to try to explain why some readers select hyperlinks based on strategies that lead to lower levels of comprehension (i.e., screen position and personal interest). Results from 2 studies revealed that readers with low prior knowledge base their decisions on what to read next on a default s…

Deviance, did you get it? An experiment in reading to learn

1991

Abstract This article reports an experiment in which an attempt was made to test reading a scientific text under as natural study conditions as possible. After reading a lengthy text from a Sociology textbook in English, five out of 25 Finnish college students understood a basic concept the way it had been defined by a sociologist; 4 weeks later, after going over the text the second time in Finnish, the number increased to 12. However, even after the second reading of the text in their first language, only half of the students had learnt the basic concept. This indicates that the problems in studying were not only linguistic problems; they seem also to have been study skill problems in gene…

Kindergarten pre-reading skills predict Grade 9 reading comprehension (PISA Reading) but fail to explain gender difference

2020

AbstractOne of the aims for compulsory education is to diminish or alleviate differences in children’s skills existing prior to school entry. However, a growing gender gap in reading development has increasingly been documented. Regrettably, there is scant evidence on whether differences between genders (favouring girls) have their roots in pre-reading skills or whether determining mechanisms are related to factors to do with schooling. We examined the extent to which pre-reading skills assessed in Kindergarten (age 6) predict reading comprehension in Grade 9 (age 15) and, whether the gender difference in reading comprehension can be explained by gender differences in the Kindergarten pre-r…

Reading to Learn From Online Information: Modeling the Factor Structure

2018

Identifying the factor structure of online reading to learn is important for the development of theory, assessment, and instruction. Traditional comprehension models have been developed from, and for, offline reading. This study used online reading to determine an optimal factor structure for modeling online research and comprehension among 426 sixth graders (ages 12 and 13). Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to evaluate an assessment of online research and comprehension based on a widely referenced theoretical model. Student performance reflected the theoretical constructs of the model, but several additional constructs appeared, resulting in a six-factor model: (a) locating infor…

Examining the developmental dynamics between achievement strategies and different literacy skills

2013

We examined the developmental dynamics between task-avoidant behavior and different literacy outcomes, and possible precursors of task-avoidant behavior. Seventy Greek children were followed from Grade 4 until Grade 6 and were assessed every year on reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension. The teachers assessed the children’s achievement strategies at all testing times. In addition, in Grade 4, the children responded to a task value questionnaire and the parents reported their beliefs and expectations about their children’s academic performance. The results revealed that task avoidance was reciprocally related only to reading comprehension. In addition, only parental beliefs p…

The role of literacy skills in adolescents' mathematics word problem performance – Controlling for visuo-spatial ability and mathematics anxiety

2014

Abstract The aim of the present study is to examine the relationship between eighth-grade adolescents' literacy skills and mathematics word problem performance. Moreover, visuo-spatial ability and mathematics anxiety were considered as covariates. According to the analyses of (co)variance, literacy skills were significantly associated with mathematics word problem skills among the 99 8th grade participants of the study. It is primarily for boys that reading comprehension skill predicts success in solving math word problems, while technical reading predicts both calculation skill and word problem solving skill across genders. Visuo-spatial ability was not a significant covariate in either of…

2021

This paper reviews the observations of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD). The JLD is a prospective family risk study in which the development of children with familial risk for dyslexia (N = 108) due to parental dyslexia and controls without dyslexia risk (N = 92) were followed from birth to adulthood. The JLD revealed that the likelihood of at-risk children performing poorly in reading and spelling tasks was fourfold compared to the controls. Auditory insensitivity of newborns observed during the first week of life using brain event-related potentials (ERPs) was shown to be the first precursor of dyslexia. ERPs measured at six months of age related to phoneme length identi…