This study attempts to unveil the influence of cultural factors such as child-rearing practices, attitudes toward education, holistic vs. sequential traditions, present vs. future oriented attitudes, and linguistic variables such as letter/sounds, grammar and meaning on the way …
First grade Jewish Day School students in New York City (N = 80) were taught words in English and then in Hebrew. A fully crossed design was employed, with half of the students receiving training in each language using a word family approach, and half receiving training in each …
The main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of type of testing method and reading proficiency level on readers' comprehension scores. A secondary purpose was to examine any interaction between these two factors. In addition, a question of interest was whether Bernh…
This study investigated the effects of utilizing the students' prior knowledge of Western culture and engaging them in cooperative learning on their attitude toward reading and reading performance in English as a foreign language in Indonesia. This research was conducted accordi…
The National Center for Fair and Open Testing has estimated that every American child takes as many as three standardized tests during the school year (Neill and Medina, 1989). Standardized tests drive curricula and dictate classroom instruction (Gifford, 1990). Also, tests are …
This study examines the role of second language proficiency in learning to read fluently in a second language. Sixty subjects were randomly sampled from a Hebrew Day School in Toronto. Twenty children were in each of grades two, four and six. All children had English as their fi…
The primary purpose for the investigation was to determine if strategies used in the Open Court curriculum truly meet the needs of second language learners. A survey of current second language learner teaching strategies was used to collect data. Due to the numerous strategies a…
The purpose of this study was to understand the differences of conscious constructive responses and shifting strategies with the goal of understanding reading comprehension while reading nonfiction, fiction, and poetry texts. This naturalistic diagnostic study uses a think-aloud…
The pedagogical literature deals with the research done in the field of reading processes and the approaches and methods in the teaching of reading. The pedagogical literature in the area of Talmudic teaching usually relates to the difficulties inherent in the teaching of Talmud…
This investigation replicated and extended a study conducted by Medina (1990). The study examined the effect of music on the acquisition and retention of story vocabulary for kindergarten and first grade students in a selected school in eastern Pennsylvania. A second factor, the…
As the English language continues to hold a prominent international position both politically and academically, the need for second/foreign language (L2) learners especially those involved in the scientific and technological disciplines to read from their books in English remain…
Becker Elementary School in Dearborn, Michigan is a school wide chapter program with 79 percent of its students on free or reduced lunch. This unique population of students consists of 93 percent second language learners, mainly of Arabic descent. Becker has experienced this yea…
The research in the present study investigates the contribution of learners' knowledge of linguistic factors, namely, vocabulary and syntax to English as a foreign language reading comprehension. Four research questions are addressed: (a) Is there a correlation between lexical k…
This dissertation is a performance of, meditation on, and inquiry into the practice of close reading as it relates to the teaching, learning, and interpretation of literature. The objects of close reading include literature, the history of literary pedagogy and its relationship …
A rural school district identified a problem among high school content classrooms of insufficient attention to instruction aimed at enabling students to comprehend content area text material. Concerns about attention to reading instruction in content classrooms are also evident …
This dissertation is a historical ethnographic study on the act of reading in late imperial China. Focusing on the practice and representation of reading, I present a mosaic of how reading was conceptualized, perceived, conducted, and transmitted from the tenth to the eighteenth…