EFL literacy instruction as reflected in elementary school textbooks in Israel
This study aimed to explore to what extent literacy instruction components, as defined by research, are incorporated into textbooks that are commonly used for teaching EFL in elementary schools in Israel according to teacher self-reports. The textbook examination was based on the research-based literacy components aligned with the Science of Reading for English as a first language and on additional EFL literacy instruction components. The findings indicate that textbooks inadequately cover theory-based instructional materials for each of the literacy components. The conclusions of this study can be used to raise awareness ...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 24, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Heterogeneity in reading achievement and mindset of readers with reading difficulties
AbstractRecent research has focused on evaluating the relation between mindset and reading achievement. We used exploratory factor mixture models (E-FMMs) to examine the heterogeneity in reading achievement and mindset of 650 fourth graders with reading difficulties. To build E-FMMs, we conducted confirmatory factor analyses to examine the factor structure of scores of (a) mindset, (b) reading, and (c) mindset/reading combined. Our results indicated (a) a 2-factor model for mindset (General Mindset vs.Reading Mindset), (b) a 2-factor model for reading (Word Reading vs.Comprehension; four covariances), and (c) a combined mo...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 23, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
From knowing to doing: assessing the skills used to teach reading and writing
This study presents results from a project to develop and pilot a new type of performance assessment of the skills used when teaching reading and writing. To provide context for this new approach, we begin by identifying the different types of knowledge that have historically been the focus of teacher assessment. Next we describe the newly developed performance assessment and present results from a pilot with 59 teacher candidates. The results suggest that the performance tasks can provide reliable evidence of the skills used to teach a range of reading and writing content across the K-6 grade span. We conclude by discussi...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 21, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
The effects of writing systems and scripts on cognition and beyond: An introduction
(Source: Reading and Writing)
Source: Reading and Writing - April 19, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Constructing theoretically informed measures of pause duration in experimentally manipulated writing
AbstractThis paper argues that traditional threshold-based approaches to the analysis of pauses in writing fail to capture the complexity of the cognitive processes involved in text production. It proposes that, to capture these processes, pause analysis should focus on the transition times between linearly produced units of text. Following a review of some of the problematic features of traditional pause analysis, the paper is divided into two sections. These are designed to demonstrate: (i) how to isolate relevant transitions within a text and calculate their durations; and (ii) the use of mixture modelling to identify s...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 18, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Properties of a combined measure of reading and writing: the Assessment of Writing, Self-Monitoring, and Reading (AWSM Reader)
AbstractThere is significant overlap between reading and writing, but no known standardized measure assesses these jointly. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the properties of a novel measure, the Assessment of Writing, Self-Monitoring, and Reading (AWSM Reader), that simultaneously evaluates both reading comprehension and writing. In doing so, we evaluate reliability (Cronbach ’s alpha) and various aspects of construct-related validity, including separate criterion measures of reading and writing, and the AWSM Reader’s relations with other variables, including language and executive function (EF), both of w...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 16, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
The effectiveness of self-regulated strategy development on improving English writing: Evidence from the last decade
This study aims to estimate the overall average effect of SRSD on English writing outcomes and to examine the extent to which the effect was moderated by outcome features (writing outcome, genre, measure type), methodological features (assignment, duration of intervention, and methodological quality), learner features (educational level and country), and publication features (publication type). A total of 43 effect sizes were extracted from 22 primary studies that were published or written in the past decade. Results suggested that SRSD had a positively large effect on writing outcomes. Writing outcome type was found to mo...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 16, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Characteristics of the written compositions of Spanish children with dyslexia and their relationship with spelling difficulties
AbstractPrevious work in English has found that the spelling difficulties of children with dyslexia affect the overall quality attributed to their written compositions. The aim of this study was to investigate whether different processes related to transcription, translation and ideas proposing/planning are affected in developmental dyslexia and to what extent potential deficits are associated to poor spelling. Compositions handwritten by Spanish-speaking children with and without dyslexia aged 9 –12 years-old (n = 42) were compared on measures of productivity, spelling accuracy, legibility, lexical diversity, punct...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 13, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Does a truly symmetrically transparent orthography exist? Spelling is more difficult than reading even in an orthography considered highly transparent for both reading and spelling
This study aimed to address this issue by comparing children ’s reading and spelling accuracy on the same lexical items in Turkish, which is highly transparent for both reading and spelling. The study also examined an exceptional case, namely letter Ğ, which can cause phonemic ambiguity and potentially complicate spelling but not reading accuracy in Turkis h. Through two experiments, children’s reading and spelling accuracy rates were tested on the same nonword and real word items at grade 1 (Experiment 1,N = 40,Mage = 80.93 months,SD = 2.79 months; Experiment 2,N = 39;Mage = 80.97 months,SD = ...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 11, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Examining undergraduates ’ text-based evidence identification, evaluation, and use
This study examines three core processes in undergraduates ’ reasoning about four different evidence types (i.e., anecdotal, observational, correlational, and causal). In particular, we examine undergraduates’ processes of evidence identification, evaluation, and selection of evidence to include in writing and how these manifest across different evidenc e types. Undergraduates’ justifications for their evidence evaluations and selections were also examined. Results showed that students were successfully able to differentiate anecdotal evidence from other types of quantitative evidence and rated anecdotal evidence as ...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 9, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Effects of searching for rhetorical relations on university-level text comprehension in L2
AbstractEstablishing relations between concepts and ideas is vital for university-level reading. However, students often understand expository text only superficially (Graesser,2007), especially in the case of a second language (L2). Insufficiently developed linguistic competence, inadequate prior knowledge or weaker reading skills may all lead to a lack of deep comprehension. Our aim was to examine the effects of a macrostructure-based reading strategy of searching for rhetorical relations on the comprehension of a text in English as L2. A quasi-experimental study was conducted in which junior undergraduate students of bu...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 9, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
The mediating effects of reading amount and strategy use in the relationship between intrinsic reading motivation and comprehension: differences between Grade 4 and Grade 6 students
AbstractThere has been a significant volume of research studying the effect of individuals ’ motivation on reading comprehension. The findings of previous research have demonstrated both the direct contribution of motivation to comprehension and its indirect influence through mediating effects of reading amount and strategy use. The effect of the linkage between the two mediators, howev er, is somewhat underexplored in previous studies, meaning that we have not yet achieved a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of these mechanisms and especially the part reading amount and strategy use play in connecting ...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 9, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Typical 6-year-old children ’s confusion between “b” and “d” in reading cannot be assimilated to reversal
This study aimed to provide empirical evidence that the two processes are indeed very different. The sample consisted of 529 first graders (Mage = 6.21 years) who participated in the French National Assessment at the beginning of the school year. Simple linear, Bayesian, and logistic regression modeling of the left–right reversal rate in writing digits as a function of the confusion rate in children’s recognition of the letters b a nd d showed a negative relationship between the two rates, and a nonparametric test yielded a significant negative correlation (rS(318) = –0.373,p < .001). These results ...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 8, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Scoring rubric reliability and internal validity in rater-mediated EFL writing assessment: Insights from many-facet Rasch measurement
AbstractScoring rubrics are known to be effective for assessing writing for both testing and classroom teaching purposes. How raters interpret the descriptors in a rubric can significantly impact the subsequent final score, and further, the descriptors may also color a rater ’s judgment of a student’s writing quality. Little is known, however, about how peer raters use a teacher-developed scoring rubric in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing contexts. In the current study, Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (MFRM) was applied to examine a scoring rubric for EFL wr iting and analyze the severity and consistency in rat...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 8, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
Self-teaching new words among English language learners
AbstractChildren can teach themselves new words via the process of independent text reading —previous studies on self-teaching heavily focused on learning to read in a first language (L1). Limited work to date has been devoted to second language learning (L2). The present study aimed to fill this gap by investigating self-teaching among English Language Learners (ELLs) with Spanish L1, w ith a specific focus on the roles of exposure time and context. Twenty-one third-grade ELLs read aloud eight texts, including four cohesive stories and four scrambled texts, each containing one target pseudoword. In half of the texts, th...
Source: Reading and Writing - April 7, 2022 Category: Child Development Source Type: research
