The progression of silent reading rates and reading comprehension were examined among Japanese university students (N = 55) over one academic semester. Participants were divided into three quasi-experimental groups. The first group practiced a combination of timed reading and repeated oral reading with attention paid to chunking and prosody. The…

We compared three methods for increasing reading amount and reading self-efficacy among L2 learners. (1) We required a word-target group to read at least 2,500 words a week outside class. (2) We required a sustained silent reading (SSR) group to do (a) in class SSR for 15 minutes every week, and (b) to read one book per week. (3) We required a…

While theories of embodied cognition have been investigated in lab experiments with proficient readers, currently no studies have applied these theories to improving reading comprehension for low-proficiency readers. Using an embodied cognition approach, this study investigated producing comics as an embodied reading activity. To compare effects…

Standards of coherence are one of the major factors that influence reading comprehension. This study investigated the standards of coherence that second language (L2) learners employ when reading. In a pair of experiments, Japanese learners of English read two-sentence texts with varying causal and semantic relatedness between sentences and then…

This study aimed to examine the effects of different text difficulty levels on foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA) and reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To this end, 50 elementary EFL learners were selected from two intact classes (n = 25 each). Each class was assigned to a text difficulty level (i.e.,…

This study aims to investigate the extent to which reading comprehension and learning styles are related to perceived use of reading strategies among students studying French at an Australian university and a Turkish university. Ninety-one participants completed a background questionnaire, the Survey of Reading Strategies, the Kolb Learning Style…

This study compares the language learner and test-taking strategies used by Chinese-speaking graduate students when confronted with familiar versus unfamiliar topics in an English multiple-choice format reading comprehension test. Thirty-six participants at a large mid-western university performed three tasks: A content knowledge vocabulary…

Three experiments examined whether the process of lexical inferences differs according to the direction of contextual elaboration using a semantic relatedness judgment task. In Experiment 1, Japanese university students read English sentences where target unknown words were semantically elaborated by prior contextual information (forward lexical…

This study examined the effect of reading goal, topic-familiarity, and language proficiency on text comprehension and learning. English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students with high and low topic-familiarity read and recalled a text. Some were told in advance to expect a recall task in a particular language--the first language (L1) or second…

This study uses a moving windows self-paced reading task to assess both text comprehension and processing time of authentic texts and these same texts simplified to beginning and intermediate levels. Forty-eight second language learners each read 9 texts (3 different authentic, beginning, and intermediate level texts). Repeated measures ANOVAs…

Unlike research in reading which focuses on data from individuals reading independently, this study identified second language (L2) college students' reading processes that occurred within dyadic peer interactions during shadow-reading, a collaborative procedure based on repetition and summarizing. Also, written retellings (immediate and delayed)…

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of extensive reading (ER) and shadowing on performance on reading comprehension tests. This study addressed the following research questions: (a) Can extensive reading improve students' reading comprehension? and (b) can shadowing enhance the effects of extensive reading? The participants in the…

Texts are routinely simplified for language learners with authors relying on a variety of approaches and materials to assist them in making the texts more comprehensible. Readability measures are one such tool that authors can use when evaluating text comprehensibility. This study compares the Coh-Metrix Second Language (L2) Reading Index, a…

We explore the relationship between second language (L2) learners' vocabulary size, lexical text coverage that their vocabulary provides and their reading comprehension. We also conceptualize "adequate reading comprehension" and look for the lexical threshold for such reading in terms of coverage and vocabulary size. Vocabulary size was…

This study investigated whether cultural familiarity influences comprehension of short stories and whether nativizing the story or using reading activities can compensate for the lack of such familiarity. The study was conducted with 44 advanced-level students of English at a state university in Turkey. In a 2 x 2 experimental research design, the…