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This exploratory study was designed to evaluate the interplay of students’ rate and comprehension in independent silent reading of accessible text, within the frameworks of the Simple View of Reading and the RAND Reading Study Group. In the first phase, 61 sixth graders were given a reading test (GRADE), a motivation questionnaire, and an on-screen measure of comprehension-based silent reading rate (SRF-O, adapted from aimswebPlus SRF) with on-grade and below-grade text. Two-thirds of students had perfect or near-perfect SRF-O comprehension, but the other one-third had moderate to poor comprehension. These weaker SRF-O comprehenders had relatively low GRADE scores, but others with comparable GRADE scores comprehended well on SRF-O. The poorest SRF-O comprehenders read with increasing rate and decreasing comprehension across the SRF-O texts. In the second phase, the 21 students with weaker SRF-O comprehension took an oral reading fluency (ORF) test and a paper form of the silent reading rate measure (SRF-P) in a one-on-one setting. All students comprehended well on SRF-P and their SRF-P rates correlated highly with GRADE and ORF. Results support the view that poor comprehension in independent silent reading of accessible text may be due to factors other than reading ability (such as assessment context) and that, when students read with comprehension, their rate is a good indicator of their reading ability.

Lily Rosene began her teaching career in 2020 when COVID-19 derailed her career plans and anearby school was desperate for teachers. She entered her first 9th-grade English classroom without a clear understanding of her students or the curriculum. However, she knew reading was important to any English classroom, so she decided to make silent reading part of her routine. And personal experience showed her that personal choice could promote a love of reading, so she decided to let her students pick their own books. This aligned with some of the ideas a mentor teacher shared with her, but it wasn’t a common practice at her school. However, after two years of building a classroom around independent reading and student choice, she saw positive results in her students’ standardized test scores.

Reading comprehension enables each child to make meaning of the world. Therefore, it is important to develop this during the child’s primary years in school. Using ex post facto design, this study investigated the effects of reading methods on English reading comprehension of randomly selected 75 Grade 2 pupils in a private school in the Philippines. The scores of pupils who read two comparable narrative passages in oral and silent were compared. Paired t-test results revealed a significant difference between oral reading and silent reading. Silent reading had a greater positive effect on the comprehension of the pupils. Likewise, it was the most preferred reading method among the respondents. Focus group discussion with English teachers' results suggested that silent reading was preferred specifically because it helps in understanding the story better, remembering words, and concentrating given its quiet and peaceful nature. It is recommended that teachers employ sustained silent reading classroom practices such as Silent Reading Activity (SRA) Reading Laboratory, Genuine Love for Reading activities through the Four-pronged approach, and Drop Everything and Read time. These methods will help to support the reading needs and preference of the generation alpha pupils and to further strengthen the positive effects of silent reading on improving their reading comprehension.

Although strong claims have been made regarding the educational utility of eye tracking, such statements seem somewhat unfounded in the absence of clear evidence regarding the technical adequacy of eye movement (EM) data. Past studies have yielded direct and indirect evidence concerning the utility of EMs as measures of reading, but recent research explicitly investigating their reliability and validity has been lacking. The current study updates and extends past research by investigating the reliability and validity of recently used EM measures of children's reading. Participants were 175 second-grade students whose Ems were monitored during silent reading of narrative text(s) at two timepoints. Participants were also individually administered measures of reading achievement. Results indicate adequate reliability and validity for passage-level measures of fixation duration but suggest that elementary students' reading behaviors relative to specific words are weakly associated with their normative levels of reading achievement.

This paper presents the results of a study on the use of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) as an independent learning tool among university undergraduates in an English language proficiency course at an institution of higher learning in Malaysia. It investigated the use of SSR in bringing about positive influence in the learning of English language. The study was inspired by the negative perception presented by the students in regards to reading. Data was collected using the SSR questionnaire (SSRQ) designed by the researchers. The findings and results, if taken seriously by the higher education institutions, may lead to the active use of SSR to improve English language proficiency, promote readers’ attitude and motivation towards the joy of reading and also develop independent lifelong readers through the use of print media and its alternative, ubiquitous media.

Reading difficulties in school are very challenging for teachers due to many different reader subtypes in one and the same class. Moreover, there are few easy-to-use tools enabling teachers to assess reading ability. According to the Simple View of Reading (Hoover and Gough in Reading and Writing, 2(2), 127–160, 1990), efficient reading comprehension is the result of an interaction between word reading (through three word representation levels: orthographic, phonological, and semantic) and comprehension (through three processing types: literal, text-connecting, and gap-filling inferences). Difficulties in one of these components, or in both, should lead to difficulties in reading comprehension and bring about different reader subtypes. This study aims, first, to examine the validity of the tool and, second, to explore performance reading patterns of children with reading difficulties. A population of 485 typically developing French children from grade 2 to grade 9 was tested using three computerized tasks that recorded accuracy and speed: lexical quality to examine the three levels of word representation; silent reading and listening comprehension to examine both literal and inferential processing. Results showed the appropriateness of the tool but also identified a number of limits. It was possible with the results to detect 76 children with reading comprehension difficulties and to divide them into 5 clusters essentially according to their word reading performances. The results are discussed in relation to the theoretical frameworks used to build the tool.

A whole school (K-12) Reading for Pleasure program was implemented at an independent girls' school in Sydney, Australia. This paper reports on the results of a teacher survey conducted one year into the implementation of the program. Qualitative data were collected from 105 teachers on the perceived benefits and challenges of the program. Teachers were overwhelmingly positive about the benefits, which included increased skill development, not only in literacy, but also in learning dispositions and 21st century skills, such as creativity and imagination. Other benefits included student engagement and wellbeing. Teachers identified challenges with implementing the program, including student disengagement, and organisational and structural concerns. Advice for implementing a whole school RfP program is given based on the experiences of the Project team and results of the survey.

We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffuse tensor imaging (DTI) to study neural implications of silent reading of words in mutually comprehensible but visually and orthographically distinct languages for example Hindi and Urdu by independent groups of skilled readers. The fMRI results (conjunction analyses) showed the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44/45), bilateral inferior occipital (BA 18/19), bilateral superior parietal (BA 7), left pre-central region (BA 6), and bilateral inferior temporal gyrus (BA 20) as common regions for Hindi and Urdu readers. Some additional regions such as left ventral occipitotemporal, left middle frontal (BA 46), left middle occipital (BA18), and bilateral post-central regions (BA 3) were observed for Urdu readers. DTI results showed significantly higher FA value at the left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus in Urdu speakers. Overall findings suggest strong engagement of ventral visual pathway in reading Urdu which has a visually complex deep orthography.

A meta-analysis was performed to investigate the impact of extensive reading (ER) on reading proficiency. This study gathered 71 unique samples from 49 primary studies published from 1980 to 2014 involving a total of 5,919 participants. Effect sizes were generated separately according to two different study designs: experimental-versus-control contrasts and pre-to-post-test contrasts. Small to medium effect was found in both study designs. Moderator analysis showed growing interest in ER in the field over the last 30 years. Also, a higher effect was found in the adults than in the children and adolescents group. English as a foreign language (EFL) settings showed a higher effect than English as a second language (ESL) settings; and web-based stories had a higher effect than paper books. Finally, ER as a part of curriculum showed the highest mean effect among ER types. Suggestions are made on how to implement ER in ESL and EFL settings effectively.

In this article, we explore the association between students' value of reading and their behavior during a sustained silent reading (SSR) period, and their attitudes toward SSR and reading leisure books. 362 secondary students participated in this study and data were collected by means of a questionnaire. The results showed that more students in the high value of reading (HVR) group behaved better during SSR periods and had a more positive attitude toward SSR and leisure book reading than those in the lower value of reading (LVR) group. The value of reading was also found to be associated with the frequency of interaction with parents in reading activities, and we thus suggest that parents should be involved in the SSR program.