Extensive reading through the Internet: is it worth the while?

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Juan Pino Silva

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Reading materials written in English is the prime goal of many reading programs around the world. Extensive reading (ER has for years aided new students at my institution to gradually acquire large vocabularies and other sub-skills that are needed to read fluently. To continue to do that effectively, a new scheme involving the use of internet - called w-ERP- was set in place in collaboration with the students. The main focus of this article is to describe the 3-phase, gradual process that led to the current design of the web-based ER scheme. The paper begins with a brief discussion of ER, reading on line (RO and self-directed learning as part of the rationale for the new scheme. Participants’ preliminary data on the benefits and potentials for learning to read and reading for learning other things are discussed.

The Core Principles of Extensive Reading in an EAP Writing Context

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Park, Jeongyeon; Ro, Eunseok

2015-01-01

In the first part of the discussion forum on extensive reading (ER) in "Reading in a Foreign Language" ("RFL") (April 2015 issue), many scholars in the field shared views regarding the core features to be considered when implementing ER, frequently referring to Day and Bamford's (1998, 2002) top 10 principles for teaching ER.…

Investigation of the Effect of Using a Novel as an Extensive Reading on Students’ Attitudes and Reading Ability

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Shima Ghiabi

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The present study aims at investigating learners’ perceptions on the use of a novel as an extensive reading in a college EFL reading course. For this purpose, fifty Iranian EFL students read and received instructions on an unabridged short novel in addition to, their text book for one semester. Three questionnaires were used to measure students’ attitudes toward novel-reading, students’ confidence in novel reading ability and students’ perceptions toward using a novel as an auxiliary material, prior to and after reading the novel. In addition, three open questions were offered to obtain benefits and obstacles of the novel reading. T-test analysis were used and findings revealed that there was a significant improvement after reading the novel in students’ attitudes, confidence, interest and their novel-reading ability. However, they suggested reading the novels according to the theme that they preferred. The result of this study are of pedagogic significance to EFL teaching in that they indicated how well a novel was received in an EFL Advanced reading class.

The Effects of an Extensive Reading Program on Improving English as Foreign Language Proficiency in University Level Education

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Alzu'bi, Mohammad Akram

2014-01-01

This study aimed at investigating the impact of extensive reading on improving reading proficiency. The study tried to find the effect of ER on EFL student's reading, vocabulary and grammar. The researcher designed two instruments; a program based on the extensive reading strategy and general test. Forty-one university students who study English…

Urban Extension's New Nontraditional Offering: Parent-Child Reading Enhancement Program

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Brandon, Dorothy P.; Tsamaase, Marea; Humphrey, Ronnie; Crenshaw, Kevin

2018-01-01

Urbanization is causing a major shift in Extension's programming throughout the United States. We present results of a nontraditional urban program (the Parent-Child Reading Enhancement Program) that is being implemented by Alabama Cooperative Extension System's Urban Affairs and New Nontraditional Programs unit. Findings suggest that this…

Extensive Graded Reading in the Liberal Arts and Sciences

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Poulshock, Joseph

2010-01-01

For this research, learners did extensive graded reading (EGR) with traditional graded readers, and they also interacted with short graded stories in the liberal arts and sciences (LAS). This study describes the purpose and format of the LAS stories used by hundreds of university students and adult learners in Japan. It summarizes the results of…

501 reading comprehension questions

CERN Document Server

2014-01-01

This updated edition offers the most extensive and varied practice for all types of questions students might face on standardized and in-class tests. With this guide, students will learn to develop expert reading strategies, understand how to read faster and with greater comprehension, overcome reading anxiety, and increase appreciation of reading for pleasure. This book's step-by-step approach provides graduated coverage that moves from the basics to more advanced reading.

PROMOTING AUTONOMOUS LEARNING IN READING CLASS

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Agus Sholeh

2015-11-01

Full Text Available To have good acquisition and awareness in reading, the learners need a long and continuous process, and therefore, they are required to have autonomy in learning reading. This study aims to promote learner autonomy in reading class by combining learner-centered reading teaching and extensive reading teaching. Learner-centered reading teaching was carried out through group discussion, presentation, and language awareness activities. Meanwhile, extensive reading teaching was done to review the learners‘ materials in presentation and reinforce their acquisition. Those two different approaches were applied due to differences on learner's characteristics and needs. The result showed some success in the practice of autonomy, indicated by changes on learners' attitude. However, many learners showed that they focused more on obtaining score than on developing their language acquisition. By implementing the approach, the teacher can assist learners to be aware of their ability to learn independently and equip them with the skill needed for long-life learning.

Extensive Reading for Second Language Learners of Japanese in Higher Education: Graded Readers and Beyond

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Nakano, Teiko

2016-01-01

This paper reports on the implementation of Japanese extensive reading with international students studying at a Japanese university using graded readers (GRs). GRs chosen for the present study were simplified versions of original Japanese literature and were used to support students in acquiring a top-down reading strategy, a wide range of…

Productive extension of semantic memory in school-aged children: Relations with reading comprehension and deployment of cognitive resources.

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Bauer, Patricia J; Blue, Shala N; Xu, Aoxiang; Esposito, Alena G

2016-07-01

We investigated 7- to 10-year-old children's productive extension of semantic memory through self-generation of new factual knowledge derived through integration of separate yet related facts learned through instruction or through reading. In Experiment 1, an experimenter read the to-be-integrated facts. Children successfully learned and integrated the information and used it to further extend their semantic knowledge, as evidenced by high levels of correct responses in open-ended and forced-choice testing. In Experiment 2, on half of the trials, the to-be-integrated facts were read by an experimenter (as in Experiment 1) and on half of the trials, children read the facts themselves. Self-generation performance was high in both conditions (experimenter- and self-read); in both conditions, self-generation of new semantic knowledge was related to an independent measure of children's reading comprehension. In Experiment 3, the way children deployed cognitive resources during reading was predictive of their subsequent recall of newly learned information derived through integration. These findings indicate self-generation of new semantic knowledge through integration in school-age children as well as relations between this productive means of extension of semantic memory and cognitive processes engaged during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

A Model of Motivation for Extensive Reading in Japanese as a Foreign Language

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de Burgh-Hirabe, Ryoko; Feryok, Ann

2013-01-01

Numerous studies have reported that extensive reading (ER) has a positive influence on affect. Recent studies suggest that motivation for ER changes. This is in line with recent developments in second language (L2) motivation research that have highlighted the complex and dynamic nature of L2 motivation. This study presents a model of complex and…

Productive Extension of Semantic Memory in School-Aged Children: Relations with Reading Comprehension and Deployment of Cognitive Resources

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Bauer, Patricia J.; Blue, Shala N.; Xu, Aoxiang; Esposito, Alena G.

2016-01-01

We investigated 7- to 10-year-old children's productive extension of semantic memory through self-generation of new factual knowledge derived through integration of separate yet related facts learned through instruction or through reading. In Experiment 1, an experimenter read the to-be-integrated facts. Children successfully learned and…

Extensive Reading of Children’s Literature in First, Second, and Foreign Language Vocabulary Acquisition

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Dominic Cheetham

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Extensive reading of children’s literature can be seen as one of the most powerful means to acquiring a large working vocabulary for both first language learners and second language learners. However, for foreign language learners, children’s literature has a less positive image. For foreign language learners the most commonly recommended reading is of graded readers. Corpus research has shown that work for children has a wide range of rare words, comparable to adult literature, and this leads to the argument that children’s literature puts too great a comprehension and memory strain on foreign language learners, and is an inefficient learning tool compared to graded readers. This paper reviews existing research and examines the arguments for children’s literature in language learning in terms of some features of naturalistic child reading behaviour, and the stylistic choices of writers for children. Replication of child reading behaviours in conjunction with the aid to comprehension and memory inherent in stylistic choices, combined with motivational and practical considerations, are argued to make children’s literature an equal, if not superior choice as extended reading material for foreign language learners.

Viewing Extensive Reading from Different Vantage Points

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Stoller, Fredricka L.

2015-01-01

Some years ago (in about 2007), this author was asked by Professor Neil J. Anderson, known for his expertise in second language (L2) reading, to identify his top-five priorities for teachers of L2 reading. As it turns out, it was an interesting intellectual exercise to narrow down key issues in teaching L2 reading to a grand total of five. To…

Developing process approach-based reading textbook for grade IV students

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Dedy Irawan

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The objective of this research and development study is generating approach-based reading textbook which will be appropriate and feasible for implementation in order to improve the reading skills of Grade IV students. This research and development study referred to the steps of research and development proposed by Borg & Gall. The subjects in this study were the Grade IV students from the State Elementary Schools under the Regional Unit of Technical Implementation in Kutasari District, the Regency of Purbalingga which consist of SD Negeri 1 Cendana, of SD Negeri 1 Karangjengkol, SD Negeri 1 Sumingkir, and SD Negeri 2 Munjul. In gathering the data, the researcher made use of interview, document analysis, rating scale, test, and questionnaire. The results of this research and development study are a process approach-based reading textbook for Theme 9 “My Food is Healthy and Nutritious” which has been designed in five reading activities namely: (1 setting up; (2 reading; (3 responding; (4 understanding; and (5 expanding the understanding. This textbook has been considered feasible for implementation according to the material expert and the media expert with “Good” category and according to the book design expert with “Very Good” category. There are differences in the final results between the experimental group and the control group after the approach based-reading textbook has been applied with the significance < 0.05. These differences show the significant reading skills improvement with sig. value (2-tailed = 0.024.

Improving South African third graders’ reading skills: Lessons learnt from the use of Guided Reading approach

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Mohlanhledi P. Makumbila

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This professional development project, known as Literacy Leadership Project, enabled four Foundation Phase teachers in South Africa to implement the Guided Reading approach. Developed by American researchers Fountas and Pinnell (1996, Guided Reading helps elementary students strengthen their phonemic awareness, vocabulary, reading comprehension and fluency in small group activities. Over an 8-month period, lessons learnt came from data collected from this professional development included workshop activities, classroom observations, teachers’ group discussions and students’ artefacts. Results indicated improvement in students’ literacy engagement and motivation because of the use of levelled books, oral reading and group activities Keywords:  Guided Reading programme; foundation phase; childhood literacy; teacher professional development; literacy leadership; South Africa

If You Build It, They Will Come: From a "Field of Dreams" to a More Realistic View of Extensive Reading in an EFL Context

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Mori, Setsuko

2015-01-01

There is no shortage of studies that have reported the beneficial effects of extensive reading (ER) on various aspects of second/foreign language acquisition, including reading comprehension, reading speed, and vocabulary development. Anecdote after anecdote shows the effectiveness of ER, and no one seems to repudiate the power of reading in large…

Read-across approaches - Misconceptions, promises and challenges ahead

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Patlewicz, G.; Ball, N.; Becker, R.A.; Booth, E.D.; Cronin, M.T.D.; Kroese, D.; Steup, D.; Ravenzwaay, B. van; Hartung, T.

2014-01-01

Read-across is a data gap filling technique used within category and analogue approaches. It has been utilized as an alternative approach to address information requirements under various past and present regulatory programs such as the OECD High Production Volume Programme as well as the EU's

Teacher Modeling: Its Impact on an Extensive Reading Program

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Loh, Jason Kok Khiang

2009-01-01

This case study investigates whether teachers model reading in 1 Singapore primary school during an exercise called "uninterrupted sustained silent reading" (USSR) carried out in the classroom. Even though reading is an important determinant of a student's growth in language skills and ability, and modeling the act of reading is…

Teaching Beginning Braille Reading Using an Alphabet or Uncontracted Braille Approach

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Day, Janice Neibaur; McDonnell, Andrea P.; O'Neill, Rob

2008-01-01

This study examined the effects of using a research based print reading program modified to accommodate beginning braille readers using an alphabet or uncontracted braille reading approach with five beginning braille readers. Four of the 5 participants displayed a clear increase in their ability to read high frequency words when they began using…

Case study of read-across predictions using a Generalized Read-Across (GenRA) Approach (10th World Congress)

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We developed the Generalized Read-Across (GenRA) approach to facilitate automated, algorithmic read across predictions. GenRA uses in vitro bioactivity data in conjunction with chemical information to predict up to 574 different apical outcomes from repeat-dose toxicity studies. ...

STUDI KEMAMPUAN MEMBUAT MIND MAP BERBASIS PEMAHAMAN ARTIKEL THE JAKARTA POST PADA MATA KULIAH EXTENSIVE READING

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Pudiyono Pudiyono

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The aims of the research were to find out (a the level of the students’ ability in making mind map based on the article of The Jakarta Post in Extensive Reading, (b the problems the students have in comprehending the article of The Jakarta Post in Extensive Reading in making mind map. The data collecting technique used was a test of reading based on comprehension. The population of the research was all students of semester 6 totaling to 161 students. While the sample was taken from all 4 classes by which each class was taken at about 25%. Therefore the total sample was 48 students. The result of data analysis showed that the average ability of the students reached only 59.02. In detail, research result showed that none of the samples (0 % could do the mind map correctly or get an A. The participants who got good achievement (B amounted to only 4 people (2.48%. The majority of the participants belonged to the level of good enough to be able to make main idea analysis in order to make the mind map. The not good enough level became the majority achievement among all amounting to 89.43%. The students’ ability which got the perfect inability level in making the mind map rose to 8.09%. The problems the students had in making the mind map was the fact that they had no idea in identifying main ideas of the content of the text. Besides that students also failed in comprehending the new vocabulary they found while they were reading the articles. Failure in comprehending the new difficult words led the to get the failure in identifying main ideas by which in turns they found themselves to have no clear map of their understanding of the articles they had read. Key word: comprehension, mind mapping, new vocabulary, authentic text, natural

Jottings: An Approach to Guiding Reading in the Elementary Classroom

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Knight, Jennifer A.; Justesen, Hilary A.

2018-01-01

Comprehension is the overall goal of reading. One approach to help students increase their comprehension is to discuss a text in small-group settings. Yet, many students struggle to fully engage in meaningful discussions within these groups. Students' ability to retain and share what they read is one reason for this lack of discussion. Teaching…

Roles of Metalinguistic Awareness and Academic Extensive Reading in the Development of EFL/ESL Academic Writing Skills

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Grace H. Wang

2013-11-01

Full Text Available This paper argues that the development of academic writing proficiency may require both explicit metalinguistic awareness (MA and extensive reading (ER of academic texts. Specifically, it argues that: (a there may be a connection between explicit MA and the development of writing skills; (b there is a connection between ER and the development of writing skills, but academic ER may be required for development of academic writing skills; (c there may be a connection between explicit MA and the development of reading skills, which may be exploited for the development of academic ER skills, which in turn supports the development of academic writing skills.

An Integrated Approach to Establish Validity and Reliability of Reading Tests

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Razi, Salim

2012-01-01

This study presents the processes of developing and establishing reliability and validity of a reading test by administering an integrative approach as conventional reliability and validity measures superficially reveals the difficulty of a reading test. In this respect, analysing vocabulary frequency of the test is regarded as a more eligible way…

The Application of Task- oriented Teaching Approach to Enhancing Communicative Competence of EFL

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LI Mingxin

2014-02-01

Full Text Available To communicate is the primary goal of most foreign language learning (EFL. As an important component of the four macro skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing, reading should also serve this purpose. However, traditional methodology still dominates extensive reading teaching in most of the universities. To promote a communicative extensive reading class, we may start by designing various tasks and activities. This paper introduces a task-oriented approach in English extensive reading class. According to Nunan, task-oriented teaching involves learners in the classroom to comprehend, manipulate, produce or interact in the target language, but the focus is on the meaning rather than the form. In light of psycholinguistic model and schema theory model, the methodology covers information-gap activity, opinion-gap activity and reasoning-gap activity which can be run in the class. The task-approaches make the interaction between teacher and students, students and students more active and meaningful. Skills of reading to solve communicative problems are always treated consciously. This approach may hopefully result in some improvement on the teaching of English reading.

Grouping and Read-Across Approaches for Risk Assessment of Nanomaterials.

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Oomen, Agnes G; Bleeker, Eric A J; Bos, Peter M J; van Broekhuizen, Fleur; Gottardo, Stefania; Groenewold, Monique; Hristozov, Danail; Hund-Rinke, Kerstin; Irfan, Muhammad-Adeel; Marcomini, Antonio; Peijnenburg, Willie J G M; Rasmussen, Kirsten; Jiménez, Araceli Sánchez; Scott-Fordsmand, Janeck J; van Tongeren, Martie; Wiench, Karin; Wohlleben, Wendel; Landsiedel, Robert

2015-10-26

Physicochemical properties of chemicals affect their exposure, toxicokinetics/fate and hazard, and for nanomaterials, the variation of these properties results in a wide variety of materials with potentially different risks. To limit the amount of testing for risk assessment, the information gathering process for nanomaterials needs to be efficient. At the same time, sufficient information to assess the safety of human health and the environment should be available for each nanomaterial. Grouping and read-across approaches can be utilised to meet these goals. This article presents different possible applications of grouping and read-across for nanomaterials within the broader perspective of the MARINA Risk Assessment Strategy (RAS), as developed in the EU FP7 project MARINA. Firstly, nanomaterials can be grouped based on limited variation in physicochemical properties to subsequently design an efficient testing strategy that covers the entire group. Secondly, knowledge about exposure, toxicokinetics/fate or hazard, for example via properties such as dissolution rate, aspect ratio, chemical (non-)activity, can be used to organise similar materials in generic groups to frame issues that need further attention, or potentially to read-across. Thirdly, when data related to specific endpoints is required, read-across can be considered, using data from a source material for the target nanomaterial. Read-across could be based on a scientifically sound justification that exposure, distribution to the target (fate/toxicokinetics) and hazard of the target material are similar to, or less than, the source material. These grouping and read-across approaches pave the way for better use of available information on nanomaterials and are flexible enough to allow future adaptations related to scientific developments.

Grouping and Read-Across Approaches for Risk Assessment of Nanomaterials

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Agnes G. Oomen

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Physicochemical properties of chemicals affect their exposure, toxicokinetics/fate and hazard, and for nanomaterials, the variation of these properties results in a wide variety of materials with potentially different risks. To limit the amount of testing for risk assessment, the information gathering process for nanomaterials needs to be efficient. At the same time, sufficient information to assess the safety of human health and the environment should be available for each nanomaterial. Grouping and read-across approaches can be utilised to meet these goals. This article presents different possible applications of grouping and read-across for nanomaterials within the broader perspective of the MARINA Risk Assessment Strategy (RAS, as developed in the EU FP7 project MARINA. Firstly, nanomaterials can be grouped based on limited variation in physicochemical properties to subsequently design an efficient testing strategy that covers the entire group. Secondly, knowledge about exposure, toxicokinetics/fate or hazard, for example via properties such as dissolution rate, aspect ratio, chemical (non-activity, can be used to organise similar materials in generic groups to frame issues that need further attention, or potentially to read-across. Thirdly, when data related to specific endpoints is required, read-across can be considered, using data from a source material for the target nanomaterial. Read-across could be based on a scientifically sound justification that exposure, distribution to the target (fate/toxicokinetics and hazard of the target material are similar to, or less than, the source material. These grouping and read-across approaches pave the way for better use of available information on nanomaterials and are flexible enough to allow future adaptations related to scientific developments.

Using the MoodleReader as an Extensive Reading Tool and Its Effect on Iranian EFL Students' Incidental Vocabulary Learning

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Alavi, Sepideh; Keyvanshekouh, Afsaneh

2012-01-01

The present study focused on using the MoodleReader to promote extensive reading (ER) in an Iranian EFL context, emphasizing its effect on students' incidental vocabulary acquisition. Thirty eight Shiraz University sophomores were assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group used the MoodleReader for their ER program, while…

Teaching Reading Skills in the EFL Class. A Practical Approach

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Ovidiu Aniculaese

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Teaching reading first requires careful consideration regarding the choice of text that may yield the richest and most relevant exposure to language. Reading is most effective through a top-down approach and students must develop speed and efficiency by avoiding sub-vocalisation, focusing on key words and taking in clusters of meaning at one time. Pre-reading for gist speeds up understanding by discovery of the text’s structure and of the type of paragraph in question. Explanatory paraphrasing and context clues should be sought when difficult vocabulary is encountered. Correct answers to comprehension questions may come from an awareness of the range of distracters possible, the writer’s attitude and the focus of the question.

Evaluating approaches to find exon chains based on long reads.

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Kuosmanen, Anna; Norri, Tuukka; Mäkinen, Veli

2018-05-01

Transcript prediction can be modeled as a graph problem where exons are modeled as nodes and reads spanning two or more exons are modeled as exon chains. Pacific Biosciences third-generation sequencing technology produces significantly longer reads than earlier second-generation sequencing technologies, which gives valuable information about longer exon chains in a graph. However, with the high error rates of third-generation sequencing, aligning long reads correctly around the splice sites is a challenging task. Incorrect alignments lead to spurious nodes and arcs in the graph, which in turn lead to incorrect transcript predictions. We survey several approaches to find the exon chains corresponding to long reads in a splicing graph, and experimentally study the performance of these methods using simulated data to allow for sensitivity/precision analysis. Our experiments show that short reads from second-generation sequencing can be used to significantly improve exon chain correctness either by error-correcting the long reads before splicing graph creation, or by using them to create a splicing graph on which the long-read alignments are then projected. We also study the memory and time consumption of various modules, and show that accurate exon chains lead to significantly increased transcript prediction accuracy. The simulated data and in-house scripts used for this article are available at http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/group/gsa/exon-chains/exon-chains-bib.tar.bz2.

Towards effective extension delivery approach and strategies for ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Towards effective extension delivery approach and strategies for food security poverty ... Journal Home > Vol 6, No 1 (2010) > ... groups, promotion of best practices and environment friendly initiatives among others were recommended.

Toward an ERP-driven diagnostic approach for reading impairments.

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Korinth, Sebastian Peter; Sommer, Werner; Breznitz, Zvia

2011-01-01

This preliminary study attempted to use Event Related Brain Potentials (ERPs) to identify different causes for slow reading performance. At least two unique brain activity patterns were found for below average readers. Based on visual inspection of the N170 ERP component elicited by words in a lexical decision task, participants were either classified as N170-normal or N170-absent. Although both groups showed very dissimilar brain activity patterns, they did not differ in any reading or cognitive measures. Differences in brain activity were discussed as indicators for disturbances at specific stages of word processing, which should lead to individually adjusted intervention approaches.

A Personalized Recommendation-Based Mobile Learning Approach to Improving the Reading Performance of EFL Students

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Hsu, Ching-Kun; Hwang, Gwo-Jen; Chang, Chih-Kai

2013-01-01

In this paper, a personalized recommendation-based mobile language learning approach is proposed. A mobile learning system has been developed based on the approach by providing a reading material recommendation mechanism for guiding EFL (English as Foreign Language) students to read articles that match their preferences and knowledge levels, and a…

Slow Reading: Reading along "Lectio" Lines

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Badley, K. Jo-Ann; Badley, Ken

2011-01-01

The medieval monastic movement preserved and developed reading practices--lectio--from ancient Greek pedagogy as a slow, mindful approach to reading for formation. This ancient way of reading, now better known as lectio divina, challenges the fast, pragmatic reading so characteristic of our time. We propose that the present moment may be ripe for…

A Habermasian Approach to Critical Reading

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Lee, Cheu-jey

2016-01-01

This article explores the connection between critical reading and Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action. It proposes that Habermas's criteria used for evaluating validity claims in communicative action can be applied in reading texts critically. Analyses of different types of texts are presented to show how critical reading is done in a…

The Occupation and Participation Approach to Reading Intervention (OPARI): A Community of Practice Study

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Grajo, Lenin C.; Candler, Catherine

2017-01-01

We employed a community of practice to expand the application of the Occupation and Participation Approach to Reading Intervention (OPARI) and build the capacity of practitioners to support children with reading difficulties. Twelve pediatric practitioners participated in a community of practice for 7 months. We used a one…

Assessing Approaches to Teaching Systems Thinking: Reading Article vs. Game Play

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Pfirman, S. L.; O'Garra, T.; Lee, J.; Bachrach, E.; Bachman, G.; Orlove, B. S.

2016-12-01

Problem-solving in the complex domain of climate change requires consideration of the dynamics of systems as wholes. The long time frame, coupled with multiple interacting elements is challenging to teach through traditionally linear approaches, such as lectures or reading. On the other hand some have claimed that games are potentially useful in teaching system skills, due to their iterative, interacting, and problem solving character. In this experiment, we evaluated the impact of the EcoChains: Arctic Crisis card game on participants' mental models using a `fuzzy cognitive mapping' approach. The study population included 41 participants randomly assigned to the treatment/game play n=21 and the control/reading illustrated article: n=20. To obtain cognitive maps from participants, the first step was explaining how to draw a map, using an unrelated map as an example. Following the explanation, participants were handed large sheets of paper and asked to write down all the concepts they could think of related to: Arctic marine & sea-ice ecosystems, including the species & inhabitants of these ecosystems, all the different factors that negatively affect the health of Arctic marine & sea-ice ecosystems, its species & inhabitants, all the different factors that positively affect the health of Arctic marine & sea-ice ecosystems, its species & inhabitants. Once participants had drafted their list of concepts, they were asked to construct maps with the concepts in the center followed by arrows drawn between them to represent the direction of relationships between concepts. After the intervention - either playing the EcoChains card game or reading the illustrated article - participants were handed back their maps, together with a different colored pencil from the one they used previously, and asked to adjust the maps based on what they had learned from playing Ecochains/reading the article. Results indicate that both playing EcoChains and reading an illustrated article with

towards an appropriate extension approach for agricultural and rural ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

increased competition, decreasing profit margins, etc. has forced Extension or advisory ... participatory approach, although not questioned from an ethical or value ..... In practice this means a problem orientation or focus, where the scope of the.

Reading While Listening on Mobile Devices: An Innovative Approach to Enhance Reading

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Rochdi, Aicha; Eppard, Jenny

2017-01-01

This poster session will describe a study that took place at a university in the United Arab Emirates. The study included a reading app that was downloaded onto each student's individual mobile device. Students could read while listening to the stories. The primary goal of the study was to determine how, if at all, listening while reading in a…

NEW APPROACHES: Reading in Advanced level physics

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Fagan, Dorothy

1997-11-01

Teachers often report that their A-level pupils are unwilling to read physics-related material. What is it about physics texts that deters pupils from reading them? Are they just too difficult for 16 - 18 year olds, or is it that pupils lack specific reading skills? This article describes some of the results from my research into pupils' reading of physics-related texts and tries to clarify the situation.

Association of Kinesthetic and Read-Write Learner with Deep Approach Learning and Academic Achievement

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Latha Rajendra Kumar

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Background: The main purpose of the present study was to further investigate study processes, learning styles, and academic achievement in medical students. Methods: A total of 214 (mean age 22.5 years first and second year students - preclinical years - at the Asian Institute of Medical Science and Technology (AIMST University School of Medicine, in Malaysia participated.  There were 119 women (55.6% and 95 men (44.4%.   Biggs questionnaire for determining learning approaches and the VARK questionnaire for determining learning styles were used.  These were compared to the student’s performance in the assessment examinations. Results: The major findings were 1 the majority of students prefer to study alone, 2 most students employ a superficial study approach, and 3 students with high kinesthetic and read-write scores performed better on examinations and approached the subject by deep approach method compared to students with low scores.  Furthermore, there was a correlation between superficial approach scores and visual learner’s scores. Discussion: Read-write and kinesthetic learners who adopt a deep approach learning strategy perform better academically than do the auditory, visual learners that employ superficial study strategies.   Perhaps visual and auditory learners can be encouraged to adopt kinesthetic and read-write styles to enhance their performance in the exams.

Evaluation and Validation of Assembling Corrected PacBio Long Reads for Microbial Genome Completion via Hybrid Approaches.

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Lin, Hsin-Hung; Liao, Yu-Chieh

2015-01-01

Despite the ever-increasing output of next-generation sequencing data along with developing assemblers, dozens to hundreds of gaps still exist in de novo microbial assemblies due to uneven coverage and large genomic repeats. Third-generation single-molecule, real-time (SMRT) sequencing technology avoids amplification artifacts and generates kilobase-long reads with the potential to complete microbial genome assembly. However, due to the low accuracy (~85%) of third-generation sequences, a considerable amount of long reads (>50X) are required for self-correction and for subsequent de novo assembly. Recently-developed hybrid approaches, using next-generation sequencing data and as few as 5X long reads, have been proposed to improve the completeness of microbial assembly. In this study we have evaluated the contemporary hybrid approaches and demonstrated that assembling corrected long reads (by runCA) produced the best assembly compared to long-read scaffolding (e.g., AHA, Cerulean and SSPACE-LongRead) and gap-filling (SPAdes). For generating corrected long reads, we further examined long-read correction tools, such as ECTools, LSC, LoRDEC, PBcR pipeline and proovread. We have demonstrated that three microbial genomes including Escherichia coli K12 MG1655, Meiothermus ruber DSM1279 and Pdeobacter heparinus DSM2366 were successfully hybrid assembled by runCA into near-perfect assemblies using ECTools-corrected long reads. In addition, we developed a tool, Patch, which implements corrected long reads and pre-assembled contigs as inputs, to enhance microbial genome assemblies. With the additional 20X long reads, short reads of S. cerevisiae W303 were hybrid assembled into 115 contigs using the verified strategy, ECTools + runCA. Patch was subsequently applied to upgrade the assembly to a 35-contig draft genome. Our evaluation of the hybrid approaches shows that assembling the ECTools-corrected long reads via runCA generates near complete microbial genomes, suggesting

Modern versus Tradition: Are There Two Different Approaches to Reading of the Confucian Classics?

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Cheng, Chung-yi

2016-01-01

How to read the Confucian Classics today? Scholars with philosophical training usually emphasize that the philosophical approach, in comparison with the classicist and historical ones, is the best way to read the Confucian Classics, for it can dig out as much intellectual resources as possible from the classical texts in order to show their modern…

Integrative Chemical-Biological Read-Across Approach for Chemical Hazard Classification

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Low, Yen; Sedykh, Alexander; Fourches, Denis; Golbraikh, Alexander; Whelan, Maurice; Rusyn, Ivan; Tropsha, Alexander

2013-01-01

Traditional read-across approaches typically rely on the chemical similarity principle to predict chemical toxicity; however, the accuracy of such predictions is often inadequate due to the underlying complex mechanisms of toxicity. Here we report on the development of a hazard classification and visualization method that draws upon both chemical structural similarity and comparisons of biological responses to chemicals measured in multiple short-term assays (”biological” similarity). The Chemical-Biological Read-Across (CBRA) approach infers each compound's toxicity from those of both chemical and biological analogs whose similarities are determined by the Tanimoto coefficient. Classification accuracy of CBRA was compared to that of classical RA and other methods using chemical descriptors alone, or in combination with biological data. Different types of adverse effects (hepatotoxicity, hepatocarcinogenicity, mutagenicity, and acute lethality) were classified using several biological data types (gene expression profiling and cytotoxicity screening). CBRA-based hazard classification exhibited consistently high external classification accuracy and applicability to diverse chemicals. Transparency of the CBRA approach is aided by the use of radial plots that show the relative contribution of analogous chemical and biological neighbors. Identification of both chemical and biological features that give rise to the high accuracy of CBRA-based toxicity prediction facilitates mechanistic interpretation of the models. PMID:23848138

Implementation of Reseptive Esteemy Approach Model in Learning Reading Literature

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Titin Nurhayatin

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Research on the implementation of aesthetic model of receptive aesthetic approach in learning to read the literature on the background of the low quality of results and learning process of Indonesian language, especially the study of literature. Students as prospective teachers of Indonesian language are expected to have the ability to speak, have literature, and their learning in a balanced manner in accordance with the curriculum demands. This study examines the effectiveness, quality, acceptability, and sustainability of the aesthetic approach of receptions in improving students' literary skills. Based on these problems, this study is expected to produce a learning model that contributes high in improving the quality of results and the process of learning literature. This research was conducted on the students of Language Education Program, Indonesian Literature and Regional FKIP Pasundan University. The research method used is experiment with randomized type pretest-posttest control group design. Based on preliminary and final test data obtained in the experimental class the average preliminary test was 55.86 and the average final test was 76.75. From the preliminary test data in the control class the average score was 55.07 and the average final test was 68.76. These data suggest that there is a greater increase in grades in the experimental class using the aesthetic approach of the reception compared with the increase in values in the control class using a conventional approach. The results show that the aesthetic approach of receptions is more effective than the conventional approach in literary reading. Based on observations, acceptance, and views of sustainability, the aesthetic approach of receptions in literary learning is expected to be an alternative and solution in overcoming the problems of literary learning and improving the quality of Indonesian learning outcomes and learning process.

Reading Comprehension Strategies

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Unal Ulker

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The academic success of the university students greatly depends on the mastery of an academic reading skill. However, students as well as teachers, take the learning of this skill for granted, as they tend to presuppose that reading skill is acquired as a part of their secondary education. As a result, most first-year students employ non university strategies to read academic texts, which leads to a surface approach to reading and prevents students from a better understanding of the material. This paper will discuss the strategies that involve students in taking a deep approach to reading academic texts.

Reading Comprehension Course Through a Genre-Oriented Approach at a School in Colombia

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Andrés Rodríguez Sánchez

2017-07-01

Full Text Available This paper reports on an action-research study aimed at identifying the problems and needs of a specific group of tenth graders at a school in Colombia in relation to their reading comprehension in English in order to design, partially implement, and evaluate a genre-oriented syllabus. Findings show that the explicit instruction of metacognitive strategies helped students become more efficient readers, as well as the fact that the exposure and analysis of genres developed a better comprehension of different kinds of texts, making these students aware of the structure and patterns of the texts they were reading as they approached them with reading strategies that were appropriate for each genre and stage.

a comparative study of two agricultural extension approaches in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

each approach are described and their strengths and weaknesses are revealed including the implications of having two extension ... line of technical support and administrative control, b) to change the multi-purpose role ... evaluation and training plots called Management Training Plots (MTPs). According to Quinones et al; ...

One-dimensional barcode reading: an information theoretic approach

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Houni, Karim; Sawaya, Wadih; Delignon, Yves

2008-03-01

In the convergence context of identification technology and information-data transmission, the barcode found its place as the simplest and the most pervasive solution for new uses, especially within mobile commerce, bringing youth to this long-lived technology. From a communication theory point of view, a barcode is a singular coding based on a graphical representation of the information to be transmitted. We present an information theoretic approach for 1D image-based barcode reading analysis. With a barcode facing the camera, distortions and acquisition are modeled as a communication channel. The performance of the system is evaluated by means of the average mutual information quantity. On the basis of this theoretical criterion for a reliable transmission, we introduce two new measures: the theoretical depth of field and the theoretical resolution. Simulations illustrate the gain of this approach.

The Effect of Integrated Learning-Teaching Approach on Reading Comprehension and Narration Skills

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Ergün Hamzadayı

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This study investigated the effects of integrated learning-teaching approach on reading comprehension and narration skills. Considerations regarding how to overcome difficulties in the teaching of Turkish language through multi-theoretical perspectives have resulted in this approach to come into the existence. For the purpose of forming theoretical foundations of the research, behaviourist, cognitive and constructivist learning theories with their philosophical foundations were introduced, their principals and assumptions with regard to instructional design were compared, and their strengths and weakness were delineated. These considerations were then associated with the components of Turkish language program (content, objectives, teaching strategies and methods, assessment and that paved way for “integrative learning and teaching approach” to come into being. This study aimed to investigate whether there is a significant difference between the performance of the experimental group students who were exposed to integrative learning and teaching approach and that of control group students who were not exposed to integrative learning and teaching approach in terms of reading comprehension and written expression skills in Turkish language

MetaVelvet: An Extension of Velvet Assembler to de novo Metagenome Assembly from Short Sequence Reads (Metagenomics Informatics Challenges Workshop: 10K Genomes at a Time)

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Sakakibara, Yasumbumi

2011-10-13

Keio University's Yasumbumi Sakakibara on "MetaVelvet: An Extension of Velvet Assembler to de novo Metagenome Assembly from Short Sequence Reads" at the Metagenomics Informatics Challenges Workshop held at the DOE JGI on October 12-13, 2011.

Using the Branching Story Approach to Motivate Students' Interest in Reading

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Alduraby, Hanan; Liu, Jane

2014-01-01

This action research was to answer the pedagogical question: How effective can a branching story approach be as a motivational tool for elementary reading instruction? A branching story was created with hyperlinks built into a Powerpoint story. The young readers could interact with options at different turning points of the story, which activated…

The Effectiveness of Three Reading Approaches and an Oral Language Stimulation Program with Disadvantaged Children in the Primary Grades: A Final Report After Two Years of the Cooperative Reading Project.

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Dunn, Lloyd M.; And Others

The Cooperative Reading Project's purpose was to examine the relative effectiveness of three approaches to the teaching of beginning reading and the effectiveness of oral stimulation. This monograph reports the results of the last year of the project. The experimental reading treatments were: (1) the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), (2) the Words…

Author’s response: A universal approach to modeling visual word recognition and reading: not only possible, but also inevitable.

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Frost, Ram

2012-10-01

I have argued that orthographic processing cannot be understood and modeled without considering the manner in which orthographic structure represents phonological, semantic, and morphological information in a given writing system. A reading theory, therefore, must be a theory of the interaction of the reader with his/her linguistic environment. This outlines a novel approach to studying and modeling visual word recognition, an approach that focuses on the common cognitive principles involved in processing printed words across different writing systems. These claims were challenged by several commentaries that contested the merits of my general theoretical agenda, the relevance of the evolution of writing systems, and the plausibility of finding commonalities in reading across orthographies. Other commentaries extended the scope of the debate by bringing into the discussion additional perspectives. My response addresses all these issues. By considering the constraints of neurobiology on modeling reading, developmental data, and a large scope of cross-linguistic evidence, I argue that front-end implementations of orthographic processing that do not stem from a comprehensive theory of the complex information conveyed by writing systems do not present a viable approach for understanding reading. The common principles by which writing systems have evolved to represent orthographic, phonological, and semantic information in a language reveal the critical distributional characteristics of orthographic structure that govern reading behavior. Models of reading should thus be learning models, primarily constrained by cross-linguistic developmental evidence that describes how the statistical properties of writing systems shape the characteristics of orthographic processing. When this approach is adopted, a universal model of reading is possible.

CIDOC-CRM extensions for conservation processes: A methodological approach

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Vassilakaki, Evgenia; Zervos, Spiros; Giannakopoulos, Georgios

2015-02-01

This paper aims to report the steps taken to create the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CIDOC-CRM) extensions and the relationships established to accommodate the depiction of conservation processes. In particular, the specific steps undertaken for developing and applying the CIDOC-CRM extensions for defining the conservation interventions performed on the cultural artifacts of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Greece are presented in detail. A report on the preliminary design of the DOC-CULTURE project (Development of an integrated information environment for assessment and documentation of conservation interventions to cultural works/objects with nondestructive testing techniques [NDTs], www.ndt-lab.gr/docculture), co-financed by the European Union NSRF THALES program, can be found in Kyriaki-Manessi, Zervos & Giannakopoulos (1) whereas the NDT&E methods and their output data through CIDOC-CRM extension of the DOC-CULTURE project approach to standardize the documentation of the conservation were further reported in Kouis et al. (2).

The Effect of Four Different Approaches to Parent-Child Reading on Young Chinese Children's Reading

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Yang, Feng

2016-01-01

Forty families with four- to five-year-old Chinese children were chosen as experiment participants and equally divided into four groups for an eight-week parent-child reading experiment in different reading modes. (1) Groups A, B, and C read one of three kinds of Chinese-English audio bilingual picture books respectively: touch reading books,…

The effect of extensive reading and paired-associate learning on long-term vocabulary retention: an event-related potential study.

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Chun, Eunjin; Choi, Sungmook; Kim, Junsoo

2012-07-19

We investigated the relative efficacy of extensive reading (ER) and paired-associate learning (PAL) in the ability of second language (L2) learners to retain new vocabulary words. To that end, we combined behavioral measures (i.e., vocabulary tests) and an event-related potential (ERP) investigation with a focus on the N400 ERP component to track short- and long-term vocabulary retention as a consequence of the two different approaches. Behavioral results indicated that both ER and PAL led to substantial short-term retention of the target words. In contrast, on a long-term basis, ER was more effective than PAL to a considerable degree as indicated by a large-size effect (d=1.35). Evidence from the N400 effects (d=1.70) observed in the parietal electrode group (P3, Pz, P4) provided further support for the superior effects of ER over PAL on long-term vocabulary retention. The converging evidence challenges the assumptions of some L2 researchers and makes a significant contribution to the literature of vocabulary acquisition, because it provides the first ERP evidence that ER is more conducive to long-term vocabulary retention than PAL. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using the branching story approach to motivate students’ ınterest in reading

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Jane Liu

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This action research was to answer the pedagogical question: How effective can a branching story approach be as a motivational tool for elementary reading instruction? A branching story was created with hyperlinks built into a Powerpoint story. The young readers could interact with options at different turning points of the story, which activated the readers’ curiosity, and promoted their decision making and thinking skills. The study was carried out in an all girl school, Saudi Arabia. A class of 20 fourth-graders participated in the study. For data collection and analyses, the students were assigned into four groups based on their previous reading achievements and interests. Students’ responses to comprehension questions were tabulated. The unit-end survey results were analyzed. A majority of the participating students overwhelmingly enjoyed the experience. They were motivated to achieve the project goals sooner than planned. Kinesthetic learners demonstrated their academic potentials well beyond their performance under the traditional reading instruction.

VOCABULARY LEARNING IN AN AUTOMATED GRADED READING PROGRAM

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Hsien-Chin Liou

2007-02-01

Full Text Available Adult L2 learners are often encouraged to acquire new words through reading in order to promote language proficiency. Yet preparing suitable reading texts is often a challenge for teachers because the chosen texts must have a high percentage of words familiar to specific groups of learners in order to allow the inference of word meanings from context. With the help of word lists research and advances in quantitative corpus analyses using word frequency computer programs, this study selected sixteen articles from the computer corpus of a local Chinese-English magazine and used them to construct an online English extensive reading program. A preliminary assessment of the reading program was conducted with 38 college students over twelve weeks based upon vocabulary gains from a pretest to a posttest. The results showed that learners improved their vocabulary scores after using the reading program. The online extensive reading syllabus demonstrated that such a design for a reading program is technically feasible and pedagogically beneficial and provides value in both vocabulary gains and learner satisfaction.

An XML-based loose-schema approach to managing diagnostic data in heterogeneous formats

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Naito, O., E-mail: naito.osamu@jaea.go.j [Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 801-1 Mukouyama, Naka, Ibaraki 311-0193 (Japan)

2010-07-15

An approach to managing diagnostic data in heterogenous formats by using XML-based (eXtensible Markup Language) tag files is discussed. The tag file functions like header information in ordinary data formats but it is separate from the main body of data, human readable, and self-descriptive. Thus all the necessary information for reading the contents of data can be obtained without prior information or reading the data body itself. In this paper, modeling of diagnostic data and its representation in XML are studied and a very primitive implementation of this approach in C++ is presented. The overhead of manipulating XML in a proof-of-principle code was found to be small. The merits, demerits, and possible extensions of this approach are also discussed.

An XML-based loose-schema approach to managing diagnostic data in heterogeneous formats

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Naito, O.

2010-01-01

An approach to managing diagnostic data in heterogenous formats by using XML-based (eXtensible Markup Language) tag files is discussed. The tag file functions like header information in ordinary data formats but it is separate from the main body of data, human readable, and self-descriptive. Thus all the necessary information for reading the contents of data can be obtained without prior information or reading the data body itself. In this paper, modeling of diagnostic data and its representation in XML are studied and a very primitive implementation of this approach in C++ is presented. The overhead of manipulating XML in a proof-of-principle code was found to be small. The merits, demerits, and possible extensions of this approach are also discussed.

The Quality of Evidence in Reading Fluency Intervention for Korean Readers with Reading Difficulties and Disabilities

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Park, Yujeong; Kim, Min Kyung

2015-01-01

This study aimed to provide information about the quality of the evidence on reading fluency instruction for at-risk students and students with reading/learning disabilities as a way to evaluate whether an instructional strategy is evidence-based and has potential for classroom use. An extensive search process with inclusion and exclusion criteria…

Using the Branching Story Approach to Motivate Students’ Interest in Reading

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Hanan ALDURABY

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This action research was to answer the pedagogical question: How effective can a branching story approach be as a motivational tool for elementary reading instruction? A branching story was created with hyperlinks built into a Powerpoint story. The young readers could interact with options at different turning points of the story, which activated the readers’ curiosity, and promoted their decision making and thinking skills. The study was carried out in an all girl school, Saudi Arabia. A class of 20 fourth-graders participated in the study. For data collection and analyses, the students were assigned into four groups based on their previous reading achievements and interests. Students’ responses to comprehension questions were tabulated. The unit-end survey results were analyzed. A majority of the participating students overwhelmingly enjoyed the experience.

A Case Study of Two College Students’ Reading Strategies and Their Writing Styles

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Zhanfang Li

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The importance of integrating reading and writing has aroused many people’s interest, and how to bridge the gap between input (reading and output (writing is regarded as an urgent necessity. However, input does not equal to intake, and to achieve the stage of intake, the reader’s conscious attention to the input is necessary, which is commonly realized in the reading process, either by intensive reading (focus-on-form or extensive reading (focus-on-meaning. Previous studies put more emphasis on extensive reading, while this study is based on the assumed different effects of reading strategies upon writing styles, that is, intensive reading may guarantee accurate writing and extensive reading may promote fluent writing. Therefore the relationship between two college students’ reading strategies and writing styles is the focus of this study. The research lasts for 16 months (August, 2014 - December, 2015, during which all their journal writing pieces, their term papers, together with their compositions in the final exams, are used as the written data, while materials concerned with their reading strategies are collected by a questionnaire, two interviews, as well as their written self-reflections. Results show that extensive reading with a subconscious focus-on-meaning tends to enhance the fluency of writing while intensive reading with a conscious focus-on-form is more likely to promote the writing accuracy. Findings suggest that production is based on intake, which is the result of either the subconscious or conscious attention to both the language meaning and language form.

Early Reading Intervention by Means of a Multicomponent Reading Game

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van de Ven, M.; de Leeuw, L.; van Weerdenburg, M.; Steenbeek-Planting, E. G.

2017-01-01

This study examined the effects of an intervention with a multicomponent reading game on the development of reading skills in 60 Dutch primary school children with special educational needs. The game contains evidence-based reading exercises and is based on principles of applied gaming. Using a multiple baseline approach, we tested children's…

Anxiety and Academic Reading Performance among Malay ESL Learners

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Mohd. Zin, Zuhana; Rafik-Galea, Shameem

2010-01-01

Research into the factors that contribute to reading performance decrement in L2 reading among ESL university students is still being extensively researched in the context of ELT. This is because successful academic performance is highly dependent on good reading ability. While it is widely accepted that poor reading performance is due to lack of…

A Diagnostic Approach to Corrective Reading in the Classroom.

Science.gov (United States)

Dietrich, Dorothy M.

To meet the needs of students reading below their potentials, teachers must learn more about the reading process, become more diagnostic in determining pupils' strengths and weaknesses, and couple their knowledge of reading with an understanding of pupil deficiencies to plan a program to improve the child's ability to read. Diagnosis, though…

I read, you read, we read: the history of reading in Slovenia

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Anja Dular

2013-03-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACTPurpose: The aim of the article is to research reading habits in Slovenia in the period between 16th and 19th century and to find similarities with Austria and other European countries of that time.Methodology/approach: For the purpose of the analysis different resources were used – study books, catechisms, prayer books and manuals. We were focused on introductions in which readers are advised how to read, explaining to whom the work is intended and emphasizing the importance of meditation on the texts.Results: Historically the laud reading was prefered, as to continue the folk tradition. However, the 16th century texts were transmitted by women while the folk tradition was narrated by males. In the 18th century the higher level of literacy and greater book production and availability caused that the books were not a privilege of a few. At that time more texts were intended for silent, individual reading. Interestingly, the authors emphasized the importance of meditation on the texts, too. It was also advised when to read – it wasrecommedend to read in leisure time on Sundays, and on holidays. The role of books was also to breakaway with the reality and to forget everyday problems. Due to the overproduction of books in the 17th centrury it was concerned that books are misleading the crowds. The church considered the reading of books as inappropriate, and criticized fiction, novels and adventure stories mostly read by women.Research limitation: The study is based on Slovenian texts only, although the foreign literature, especially in German, was generally available, too.Originality/practical implications: The study is fullfiling the gap in the history of reading in Slovenia.

An Extensive Evaluation of Portfolio Approaches for Constraint Satisfaction Problems

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Roberto Amadini

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In the context of Constraint Programming, a portfolio approach exploits the complementary strengths of a portfolio of different constraint solvers. The goal is to predict and run the best solver(s of the portfolio for solving a new, unseen problem. In this work we reproduce, simulate, and evaluate the performance of different portfolio approaches on extensive benchmarks of Constraint Satisfaction Problems. Empirical results clearly show the benefits of portfolio solvers in terms of both solved instances and solving time.

Adult reading teachers’ beliefs about how less-skilled adult readers can be taught to read.

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Janet McHardy

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Despite large-scale interventions, significant numbers of adults worldwide continue to have problems with basic literacy, in particular in the area of reading. To be effective, adult reading teachers need expert knowledge at practitioner level. However, practices in adult reading education vary widely, often reflecting the individual beliefs of each teacher about how an adult can learn to read. In this study, phenomenographic analysis was used to identify categories of approaches to teaching adult reading, used by a group of 60 teachers in Western Australia and New Zealand. Four approaches were identified: reassurance, task-based, theory-based and responsive. It is argued that for teachers to become effective and consistent in responding to learner needs, they must understand their own beliefs and the consequences of these. The identification of different approaches in adult reading education is an important step in this process.

Basic Concepts of Reading Instruction

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Gökhan ARI

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Reading act is performed by connected physiological, psychological and cognitive processes. The operations taking place in these processes are expected to continue for life by being developed with certain strategies. A lot of information is gained with reading skill in education life. Therefore, basic concepts that constitute reading education in teaching and improving reading are important for teachers. The aim of this study is to submit information compiled from the literature about reading education process and which basic concepts are used in reading education. While teaching reading from part to whole, from whole to part and interactional approaches are used. From part to whole approach is at the forefront. Then with interactional approach strategies, both code solving and making sense is improved. Teachers should know the characteristics of bouncing, stopping, turning back, and scanning movements of the eye both in code solving and making sense. The teacher should configure the teaching for the students to gain fluid reading elements by making use of reading out and reading silently. After reading act is acquired; good reader characteristics should be gained by improving asking questions, guessing, summarizing, interpretation skills in integrated readings. Reading skill is improved by studies on the text. Therefore, the students should come across texts that are suitable to their levels, textuality and readability criteria. The vocabulary of children should be improved in a planned way with text-based word and meaning studies. Fluid reading, making sense and interpretation skills of children should be pursued with different evaluation types. In the long term, work should be done to make reading a habit for them.

Can Computers Be Used for Whole Language Approaches to Reading and Language Arts?

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Balajthy, Ernest

Holistic approaches to the teaching of reading and writing, most notably the Whole Language movement, reject the philosophy that language skills can be taught. Instead, holistic teachers emphasize process, and they structure the students' classroom activities to be rich in language experience. Computers can be used as tools for whole language…

Applying PQ4R Strategy for Teaching Reading

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Moh.Rodli

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Despite receiving more attention than other language skills in English classroom, the result of students’ reading comprehension achievement is still far from expectation. To help students comprehend English reading texts and have better achievement in reading skill, PQ4R strategy can be an alternative to offer. The PQ4R (also well known as SQ4R strategy of comprehending reading material is an extension of SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review This method involves previewing the reading material, questioning the reading, reading to answer the questions, reflecting upon the reading, reciting the reading, and reviewing the material. This method is useful for improving students’ reading effectiveness in addition to help students better remember what they read. This paper highlights the PQ4R strategy and its use as an alternative to improve students’ reading comprehension achievement.

APPLYING PQ4R STRATEGY FOR TEACHING READING

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Moh Rodli

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Despite receiving more attention than other language skills in English classroom, the result of students’ reading comprehension achievement is still far from expectation. To help students comprehend English reading texts and have better achievement in reading skill, PQ4R strategy can be an alternative to offer. The PQ4R (also well known as SQ4R strategy of comprehending reading material is an extension of SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review This method involves previewing the reading material, questioning the reading, reading to answer the questions, reflecting upon the reading, reciting the reading, and reviewing the material. This method is useful for improving students’ reading effectiveness in addition to help students better remember what they read. This paper highlights the PQ4R strategy and its use as an alternative to improve students’ reading comprehension achievement.

In defence of transpalatal, transpalatal-circumaxillary (transpterygopalatine) and transpalatal-circumaxillary-sublabial approaches to lateral extensions of juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma.

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Mishra, A; Mishra, S C; Verma, V; Singh, H P; Kumar, S; Tripathi, A M; Patel, B; Singh, V

2016-05-01

Juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma often presents with lateral extensions. In countries with limited resources, selection of a cost-effective and least morbid surgical approach for complete excision is challenging. Sixty-three patients with juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma, with lateral extensions, underwent transpalatal, transpalatal-circumaxillary (transpterygopalatine) or transpalatal-circumaxillary-sublabial approaches for resection. Clinico-radiological characteristics, tumour volume and intra-operative bleeding were recorded. The transpalatal approach was suitable for extensions involving medial part of pterygopalatine fossa; transpalatal-circumaxillary for extensions involving complete pterygopalatine fossa, with or without partial infratemporal fossa; and transpalatal-circumaxillary-sublabial for extensions involving complete infratemporal fossa, even cheek or temporal fossa up to zygomatic arch. Haemorrhage was greatest with the transpalatal-circumaxillary-sublabial approach, followed by transpalatal approach and transpalatal-circumaxillary approach (1212, 950 and 777 ml respectively). Tumour size (volume) was greatest with the transpalatal-circumaxillary approach, followed by transpalatal-circumaxillary-sublabial approach and transpalatal approach (40, 34 and 29 mm3). There was recurrence in three cases and residual disease in two cases. Long-term morbidity included small palatal perforation (n = 1), trismus (n = 1) and atrophic rhinitis (n = 2). These modified techniques, performed with endoscopic assistance under hypotensive anaesthesia, without embolisation, offer a superior option over other open procedures with regard to morbidity and recurrences.

Cognitive Preconditions of Early Reading and Spelling: A Latent-Variable Approach with Longitudinal Data

Science.gov (United States)

Preßler, Anna-Lena; Könen, Tanja; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Krajewski, Kristin

2014-01-01

The aim of the present study was to empirically disentangle the interdependencies of the impact of nonverbal intelligence, working memory capacities, and phonological processing skills on early reading decoding and spelling within a latent variable approach. In a sample of 127 children, these cognitive preconditions were assessed before the onset…

Processing changes across reading encounters.

Science.gov (United States)

Levy, B A; Newell, S; Snyder, J; Timmins, K

1986-10-01

Five experiments examined changes in the processing of a text across reading encounters. Experiment 1 showed that reading speed increased systematically across encounters, with no loss in the extensiveness of analyses of the printed text, as indicated by the ability to detect nonword errors embedded within that passage. Experiment 2 replicated this improved reading fluency with experience and showed that it occurred even with typescript changes across trials, thus indicating that a primed visual operations explanation cannot account for the effect. The third and fourth experiments then extended the study of the familiarity effect to higher level processing, as indicated by the detection of word errors. Familiarity facilitated the detection of these violations at the syntactic-semantic levels. Finally, Experiment 5 showed that these higher level violations continued to be well detected over a series of reading encounters with the same text. The results indicate that prior experience improves reading speed, with no attenuation of analysis of the printed words or of the passage's message.

The Library at School: Effects on reading attitude and reading frequency

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Huysmans, F.; Kleijnen, E.; Broekhof, K.; van Dalen, T.

2013-01-01

Purpose ‐ This paper aims to describe the effects of the Dutch policy program the Library at School on primary school pupils' leisure book reading and attitude towards reading books, in the first year of the nationwide implementation of the program. Design/methodology/approach ‐ In monitoring the

Reading an ESL Writer’s Text

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Paul Kei Matsuda

2011-03-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on reading as a central act of communication in the tutorial session. Writing center tutors without extensive experience reading writing by second language writers may have difficulty getting past the many differences in surface-level features, organization, and rhetorical moves. After exploring some of the sources of these differences in writing, the authors present strategies that writing tutors can use to work effectively with second language writers.

SchemaOnRead: A Package for Schema-on-Read in R

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

North, Michael J.

2016-08-01

Schema-on-read is an agile approach to data storage and retrieval that defers investments in data organization until production queries need to be run by working with data directly in native form. Schema-on-read functions have been implemented in a wide range of analytical systems, most notably Hadoop. SchemaOnRead is a CRAN package that uses R’s flexible data representations to provide transparent and convenient support for the schema-on-read paradigm in R. The schema-on- read tools within the package include a single function call that recursively reads folders with text, comma separated value, raster image, R data, HDF5, NetCDF, spreadsheet, Weka, Epi Info, Pajek network, R network, HTML, SPSS, Systat, and Stata files. The provided tools can be used as-is or easily adapted to implement customized schema-on-read tool chains in R. This paper’s contribution is that it introduces and describes SchemaOnRead, the first R package specifically focused on providing explicit schema-on-read support in R.

Supporting read-across using biological data.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Hao; Bouhifd, Mounir; Donley, Elizabeth; Egnash, Laura; Kleinstreuer, Nicole; Kroese, E Dinant; Liu, Zhichao; Luechtefeld, Thomas; Palmer, Jessica; Pamies, David; Shen, Jie; Strauss, Volker; Wu, Shengde; Hartung, Thomas

2016-01-01

Read-across, i.e. filling toxicological data gaps by relating to similar chemicals, for which test data are available, is usually done based on chemical similarity. Besides structure and physico-chemical properties, however, biological similarity based on biological data adds extra strength to this process. In the context of developing Good Read-Across Practice guidance, a number of case studies were evaluated to demonstrate the use of biological data to enrich read-across. In the simplest case, chemically similar substances also show similar test results in relevant in vitro assays. This is a well-established method for the read-across of e.g. genotoxicity assays. Larger datasets of biological and toxicological properties of hundreds and thousands of substances become increasingly available enabling big data approaches in read-across studies. Several case studies using various big data sources are described in this paper. An example is given for the US EPA's ToxCast dataset allowing read-across for high quality uterotrophic assays for estrogenic endocrine disruption. Similarly, an example for REACH registration data enhancing read-across for acute toxicity studies is given. A different approach is taken using omics data to establish biological similarity: Examples are given for stem cell models in vitro and short-term repeated dose studies in rats in vivo to support read-across and category formation. These preliminary biological data-driven read-across studies highlight the road to the new generation of read-across approaches that can be applied in chemical safety assessment.

Initial Reading through Computer Animation.

Science.gov (United States)

Geoffrion, Leo D.; Bergeron, R. Daniel

The Computer Animated Reading Instruction System (CARIS) was developed to introduce reading to children with varied sensory, cognitive, and physical handicaps. CARIS employs an exploratory learning approach which encourages children to experiment with the reading and writing of words and sentences. Brief computer-animated cartoons provide the…

The Effect of Modified Collaborative Strategic Reading on EFL Learners' Reading Anxiety

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Shabnam Abbasnezhad

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The present study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of reading instructional approach called MCSR- Modified Collaborative Strategic Reading on reducing intermediate EFL learner's reading anxiety. Based on a pretest-posttest design, MCSR was implemented with 64 EFL learners at intermediate level. They received EFL reading instruction according to MCSR over two and a half months. A questionnaire called English as a Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Inventory EFLRAI was group-administered atthepretest and the posttest. Quantitative results indicated that participating students demonstrated significant gains in reducing reading anxiety. This study highlighted our understanding by considering the effectiveness of MCSR program and also it elaborated the effects of using strategies like MCSR in overcoming the big problem of reading anxiety among EFL learners as non-native students. And teachers changed the focus of attention from using traditional methods for teaching the essential skill of reading to modern programs like MCSR in order to remove their students' anxiety and stress in reading.

Multiport Combined Endoscopic Approach to Nonembolized Juvenile Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma with Parapharyngeal Extension: An Emerging Concept

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Tiruchy Narayanan Janakiram

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Surgical approaches to the parapharyngeal space (PPS are challenging by virtue of deep location and neurovascular content. Juvenile Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma (JNA is a formidable hypervascular tumor that involves multiple compartments with increase in size. In tumors with extension to parapharyngeal space, the endonasal approach was observed to be inadequate. Combined Endoscopic Endonasal Approaches and Endoscopic Transoral Surgery (EEA-ETOS approach has provided a customized alternative of multicorridor approach to access JNA for its safe and efficient resection. Methods. The study demonstrates a case series of patients of JNA with prestyloid parapharyngeal space extension operated by endoscopic endonasal and endoscopic transoral approach for tumor excision. Results. The multiport EEA-ETOS approach was used to provide wide exposure to access JNA in parapharyngeal space. No major complications were observed. No conversion to external approach was required. Postoperative morbidity was low and postoperative scans showed no residual tumor. A one-year follow-up was maintained and there was no evidence of disease recurrence. Conclusion. Although preliminary, our experience demonstrates safety and efficacy of multiport approach in providing access to multiple compartments, facilitating total excision of JNA in selected cases.

The Development in Reading from 1934 to 1976.

Science.gov (United States)

Jansen, Mogens

This document reviews the changes in reading in Denmark from 1934 to 1976 and discusses factors that brought about the changes. The paper indicates the importance of the library in reading development and notes that children use the library more extensively today than they did earlier. Changes in society and their effects on the educational system…

Lubin-Tate extensions, an elementary approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ershov, Yu L

2007-01-01

We give an elementary proof of the assertion that the Lubin-Tate extension L≥K is an Abelian extension whose Galois group is isomorphic to U K /N L/K (U L ) for arbitrary fields K that have Henselian discrete valuation rings with finite residue fields. The term 'elementary' only means that the proofs are algebraic (that is, no transcedental methods are used)

Promoting Active Learning When Teaching Introductory Statistics and Probability Using a Portfolio Curriculum Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Adair, Desmond; Jaeger, Martin; Price, Owen M.

2018-01-01

The use of a portfolio curriculum approach, when teaching a university introductory statistics and probability course to engineering students, is developed and evaluated. The portfolio curriculum approach, so called, as the students need to keep extensive records both as hard copies and digitally of reading materials, interactions with faculty,…

INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING THROUGH READING

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Holly Warzecha, M.A. TESOL

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the following paper is to take a closer look at the benefits of incidental learning through reading, with a specific focus on vocabulary acquisition. The teaching of vocabulary has traditionally been an explicit process where the target vocabulary is taken out of context and taught separately. However, this kind of explicit teaching and learning may only take into account a form-meaning connection. Therefore, this paper explores research on incidental learning and specifically looks at what it takes to acquire new vocabulary incidentally through reading while considering the coverage rates of texts, how many words must be known already from the text, how many repetitions it takes to learn a word, types of texts that promote learning, and the effects of pairing students‘ reading with learner tasks. After reviewing many studies, it can be concluded that more reading is better. More specifically, extensive reading of chosen novels at an appropriate level and interest to the students showed important gains in vocabulary. In addition, readings that were supplemented with additional activities that focused on both form and meaning showed an even higher increase in word retention.

Android Access Control Extension

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Anton Baláž

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The main objective of this work is to analyze and extend security model of mobile devices running on Android OS. Provided security extension is a Linux kernel security module that allows the system administrator to restrict program's capabilities with per-program profiles. Profiles can allow capabilities like network access, raw socket access, and the permission to read, write, or execute files on matching paths. Module supplements the traditional Android capability access control model by providing mandatory access control (MAC based on path. This extension increases security of access to system objects in a device and allows creating security sandboxes per application.

Levelling the Reading Gap: A Socio-spatial Study of School Libraries and Reading in Singapore

Science.gov (United States)

Loh, Chin Ee

2016-01-01

This article takes a comparative socio-spatial approach at the intersection of social class and reading politics to provide a fresh way of examining school reading policies and practices, unearthing previously hidden spaces of inequity for reading intervention. The juxtaposition of two nested case studies in Singapore, one of an elite all-boys'…

Bridging Theory and Practice: Developing Lower-Level Skills in L2 Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Kato, Shigeo

2012-01-01

Studies on L2 reading have provided extensive evidence for the significant contribution of lower-level processing skills in learning to read and the critical impact on the overall development of L2 reading of more accurate and fluent connections between three sub-lexical components: phonology, orthography and semantics. The broad consensus among…

A Study of Holistic and Subskill Instructional Approaches to Reading Comprehension.

Science.gov (United States)

Vacca, Richard T.

1980-01-01

In a six-week study involving seventh- to ninth-grade students in a summer corrective reading program, neither the holistic nor the subskill treatment had a significant advantage in improving student reading comprehension or attitude toward reading. (JT)

XPL the Extensible Presentation Language

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A. Santangelo

2009-01-01

Full Text Available The last decade has witnessed a growing interest in the development of web interfaces enabling both multiple ways to access contents and, at the same time, fruition by multiple modalities of interaction (point-and-click, contents reading, voice commands, gestures, etc.. In this paper we describe a framework aimed at streamlining the design process of multi-channel, multimodal interfaces enabling full reuse of software components. This framework is called the eXtensible Presentation architecture and Language (XPL, a presentation language based on design pattern paradigm that keeps separated the presentation layer from the underlying programming logic. The language supplies a methodology to expedite multimodal interface development and to reduce the effort to implement interfaces for multiple access devices, by means of using the same code. This paper describes a methodology approach based on Visual Design Pattern (ViDP and Verbal Design Pattern (VeDP, offering examples of multimodal and multichannel interfaces created with the XPL Editor.

Enhancing Reading Comprehension of Iranian Advanced EFL Learners through Task-based Reading Activities

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Vahid Fallah Golchin

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Language learning has experienced a shift of focus from a form-focused to a meaning-focused approach, and the necessity of using task-based learning, a relatively recent approach, has emerged. The vital role of task-based materials makes it obligatory not to exclude them from the language learning syllabi.  The current study aims at investigating whether task-based reading can contribute significantly to the development of reading comprehension of Iranian advanced EFL learners of English. An experimental study was carried out in order to scrutinize the applicability of task-based language teaching. To this end, 60 female advanced EFL learners, selected from among a pool of 100 learners, were assigned equally and randomly into two groups of thirty, consisting of an experimental and a control group. The selection of the participants was based on the results of a standard and piloted version of Paper-based TOEFL. The participant’s mean age was about 23, ranging from 20 to 27 years of age. Both groups received a pretest and a post-test of reading. During the treatment period the experimental group received task-based reading activities while the control group received reading instructions through traditional methods. The impact of the treatment upon the reading comprehension ability of the participants was analyzed through an independent-samples t-test, and comparisons between groups were made. The results clearly indicated the development of reading comprehension ability of the participants in the first group (the experimental group through the application of task-based reading activities.

Training Inference Making Skills Using a Situation Model Approach Improves Reading Comprehension

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Lisanne eBos

2016-02-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to enhance third and fourth graders’ text comprehension at the situation model level. Therefore, we tested a reading strategy training developed to target inference making skills, which are widely considered to be pivotal to situation model construction. The training was grounded in contemporary literature on situation model-based inference making and addressed the source (text-based versus knowledge-based, type (necessary versus unnecessary for (re-establishing coherence, and depth of an inference (making single lexical inferences versus combining multiple lexical inferences, as well as the type of searching strategy (forward versus backward. Results indicated that, compared to a control group (n = 51, children who followed the experimental training (n = 67 improved their inference making skills supportive to situation model construction. Importantly, our training also resulted in increased levels of general reading comprehension and motivation. In sum, this study showed that a ‘level of text representation’-approach can provide a useful framework to teach inference making skills to third and fourth graders.

Efficiency of Using a Web-Based Approach to Teach Reading Strategies to Iranian EFL Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Dehghanpour, Elham; Hashemian, Mahmood

2015-01-01

Applying new technologies with their effective potentials have changed education and, consequently, the L2 teacher role. Coping with online materials imposes the necessity of employing Web-based approaches in L2 instruction. The ability to use reading strategies in a Web-based condition needs sufficient skill which will be fulfilled if it is…

Designing and application of SAN extension interface based on CWDM

Science.gov (United States)

Qin, Leihua; Yu, Shengsheng; Zhou, Jingli

2005-11-01

As Fibre Channel (FC) becomes the protocol of choice within corporate data centers, enterprises are increasingly deploying SANs in their data central. In order to mitigate the risk of losing data and improve the availability of data, more and more enterprises are increasingly adopting storage extension technologies to replicate their business critical data to a secondary site. Transmitting this information over distance requires a carrier grade environment with zero data loss, scalable throughput, low jitter, high security and ability to travel long distance. To address this business requirements, there are three basic architectures for storage extension, they are Storage over Internet Protocol, Storage over Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SONET/SDH) and Storage over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM). Each approach varies in functionality, complexity, cost, scalability, security, availability , predictable behavior (bandwidth, jitter, latency) and multiple carrier limitations. Compared with these connectiviy technologies,Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) is a Simplified, Low Cost and High Performance connectivity solutions for enterprises to deploy their storage extension. In this paper, we design a storage extension connectivity over CWDM and test it's electrical characteristic and random read and write performance of disk array through the CWDM connectivity, testing result show us that the performance of the connectivity over CWDM is acceptable. Furthermore, we propose three kinds of network architecture of SAN extension based on CWDM interface. Finally the credit-Based flow control mechanism of FC, and the relationship between credits and extension distance is analyzed.

Brain bases of reading fluency in typical reading and impaired fluency in dyslexia.

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Joanna A Christodoulou

Full Text Available Although the neural systems supporting single word reading are well studied, there are limited direct comparisons between typical and dyslexic readers of the neural correlates of reading fluency. Reading fluency deficits are a persistent behavioral marker of dyslexia into adulthood. The current study identified the neural correlates of fluent reading in typical and dyslexic adult readers, using sentences presented in a word-by-word format in which single words were presented sequentially at fixed rates. Sentences were presented at slow, medium, and fast rates, and participants were asked to decide whether each sentence did or did not make sense semantically. As presentation rates increased, participants became less accurate and slower at making judgments, with comprehension accuracy decreasing disproportionately for dyslexic readers. In-scanner performance on the sentence task correlated significantly with standardized clinical measures of both reading fluency and phonological awareness. Both typical readers and readers with dyslexia exhibited widespread, bilateral increases in activation that corresponded to increases in presentation rate. Typical readers exhibited significantly larger gains in activation as a function of faster presentation rates than readers with dyslexia in several areas, including left prefrontal and left superior temporal regions associated with semantic retrieval and semantic and phonological representations. Group differences were more extensive when behavioral differences between conditions were equated across groups. These findings suggest a brain basis for impaired reading fluency in dyslexia, specifically a failure of brain regions involved in semantic retrieval and semantic and phonological representations to become fully engaged for comprehension at rapid reading rates.

Evaluating the Evidence Base of Shared Story Reading to Promote Literacy for Students with Extensive Support Needs

Science.gov (United States)

Hudson, Melissa E.; Test, David W.

2011-01-01

This study reviewed published literature to determine the level of evidence for using shared story reading to promote literacy. Shared story reading was defined as a practice used to access age-appropriate literature through reader-listener interaction in which a story is read aloud and student interaction with the reader and the story is…

The extensive writing. Teaching writing in high school

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Daniel Cassany Comas

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Following the distinction between intensive and extensive reading, we introduce the extensive written tasks to promote the following learning objectives: 1 bringing writing closer to the learner’s personal life; 2 practicing the epistemic and communicative language functions; 3 giving the learner full responsibility for the creative act; 4 facilitating the development of cognitive processes, and 5 developing habits of written production in a variety of situations. As a consequence, extensive writing assignments produce longer texts, last longer, are self-directed by the learner-author, treat interdisciplinary topics and are not in the textbook. These tasks markedly differ from the more frequent written exercises in the classroom, which are teacher-led, contain shorter texts, work on executive or instrumental functions, and their correction is focused on spelling and grammar. We propose several educational tools in order to develop this type of tasks: portfolios (to save drafts, corrections and final versions of each text, formats (such as reading logs, lecture notes and laboratory protocols and contexts (common communicative tasks. We also discuss some basic parameters of extensive tasks, such as the length of the text, the use of several working sessions for text production, the practice of composition processes and the use of peer review, in pairs or teams.

Smart Strategy to Boost Students' Reading Comprehension

OpenAIRE

Sfafi'i, Muhammad Lukman

2015-01-01

Reading as one of language skills plays significant roles in the teaching English as a foreign language. Since the teacher still uses the conventional way to teach reading, students‘ ability in reading comprehension seems still unsatisfactory yet. So, teacher should explore and develop new strategies. One of strategies in reading comprehension that can trigger our students to attain that purpose is SMART (Self Monitoring Approach for Reading and Thinking) strategy. ...

Reducing False Negative Reads in RFID Data Streams Using an Adaptive Sliding-Window Approach

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Herman Vermaak

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Unreliability of the data streams generated by RFID readers is among the primary factors which limit the widespread adoption of the RFID technology. RFID data cleaning is, therefore, an essential task in the RFID middleware systems in order to reduce reading errors, and to allow these data streams to be used to make a correct interpretation and analysis of the physical world they are representing. In this paper we propose an adaptive sliding-window based approach called WSTD which is capable of efficiently coping with both environmental variation and tag dynamics. Our experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.

Prediction of Poly(A Sites by Poly(A Read Mapping.

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Thomas Bonfert

Full Text Available RNA-seq reads containing part of the poly(A tail of transcripts (denoted as poly(A reads provide the most direct evidence for the position of poly(A sites in the genome. However, due to reduced coverage of poly(A tails by reads, poly(A reads are not routinely identified during RNA-seq mapping. Nevertheless, recent studies for several herpesviruses successfully employed mapping of poly(A reads to identify herpesvirus poly(A sites using different strategies and customized programs. To more easily allow such analyses without requiring additional programs, we integrated poly(A read mapping and prediction of poly(A sites into our RNA-seq mapping program ContextMap 2. The implemented approach essentially generalizes previously used poly(A read mapping approaches and combines them with the context-based approach of ContextMap 2 to take into account information provided by other reads aligned to the same location. Poly(A read mapping using ContextMap 2 was evaluated on real-life data from the ENCODE project and compared against a competing approach based on transcriptome assembly (KLEAT. This showed high positive predictive value for our approach, evidenced also by the presence of poly(A signals, and considerably lower runtime than KLEAT. Although sensitivity is low for both methods, we show that this is in part due to a high extent of spurious results in the gold standard set derived from RNA-PET data. Sensitivity improves for poly(A sites of known transcripts or determined with a more specific poly(A sequencing protocol and increases with read coverage on transcript ends. Finally, we illustrate the usefulness of the approach in a high read coverage scenario by a re-analysis of published data for herpes simplex virus 1. Thus, with current trends towards increasing sequencing depth and read length, poly(A read mapping will prove to be increasingly useful and can now be performed automatically during RNA-seq mapping with ContextMap 2.

A balanced reading programme for Grade One and Two learners of English as a first and as additional language

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Wildsmith-Cromarty, Rosemary

2006-12-01

Full Text Available This study reports on a balanced reading programme (BRP designed for a multi-cultural, South African classroom at the Foundation Phase. The BRP uses the mother tongue as a valuable resource to access meaning within a supportive learning environment. The main focus of the study is on the achievements of six Zulu children with differing levels of literacy potential after exposure to a year-long balanced approach to literacy. The study also examines parents’ views on the BRP and their perceptions of the reading process. Data were drawn from the following sources: teacher observations and interactions with learners; semi-structured interviews with parents; analysis of learner assessments and parental questionnaires. It seems that the BRP enhances both the self-confidence and cognitive growth of EAL learners. It also seems that collaborative, interactive learning, extensive independent reading, a language experience approach, home and community support and high teacher expectations of learners, combined with high levels of intrinsic learner motivation can positively impact on EAL learners’ academic progress and social growth at school.

A Cognitive Dimensional Approach to Understanding Shared and Unique Contributions to Reading, Math, and Attention Skills.

Science.gov (United States)

Child, Amanda E; Cirino, Paul T; Fletcher, Jack M; Willcutt, Erik G; Fuchs, Lynn S

2018-05-01

Disorders of reading, math, and attention frequently co-occur in children. However, it is not yet clear which cognitive factors contribute to comorbidities among multiple disorders and which uniquely relate to one, especially because they have rarely been studied as a triad. Thus, the present study considers how reading, math, and attention relate to phonological awareness, numerosity, working memory, and processing speed, all implicated as either unique or shared correlates of these disorders. In response to findings that the attributes of all three disorders exist on a continuum rather than representing qualitatively different groups, this study employed a dimensional approach. Furthermore, we used both timed and untimed academic variables in addition to attention and activity level variables. The results supported the role of working memory and phonological awareness in the overlap among reading, math, and attention, with a limited role of processing speed. Numerosity was related to the comorbidity between math and attention. The results from timed variables and activity level were similar to those from untimed and attention variables, although activity level was less strongly related to cognitive and academic/attention variables. These findings have implications for understanding cognitive deficits that contribute to comorbid reading disability, math disability, and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Computational Text Analysis: A More Comprehensive Approach to Determine Readability of Reading Materials

Science.gov (United States)

Aziz, Anealka; Fook, Chan Yuen; Alsree, Zubaida

2010-01-01

Reading materials are considered having high readability if readers are interested to read the materials, understand the content of the materials and able to read the materials fluently. In contrast, reading materials with low readability discourage readers from reading the materials, create difficulties for readers to understand the content of…

A tale of two sequences: microRNA-target chimeric reads.

Science.gov (United States)

Broughton, James P; Pasquinelli, Amy E

2016-04-04

In animals, a functional interaction between a microRNA (miRNA) and its target RNA requires only partial base pairing. The limited number of base pair interactions required for miRNA targeting provides miRNAs with broad regulatory potential and also makes target prediction challenging. Computational approaches to target prediction have focused on identifying miRNA target sites based on known sequence features that are important for canonical targeting and may miss non-canonical targets. Current state-of-the-art experimental approaches, such as CLIP-seq (cross-linking immunoprecipitation with sequencing), PAR-CLIP (photoactivatable-ribonucleoside-enhanced CLIP), and iCLIP (individual-nucleotide resolution CLIP), require inference of which miRNA is bound at each site. Recently, the development of methods to ligate miRNAs to their target RNAs during the preparation of sequencing libraries has provided a new tool for the identification of miRNA target sites. The chimeric, or hybrid, miRNA-target reads that are produced by these methods unambiguously identify the miRNA bound at a specific target site. The information provided by these chimeric reads has revealed extensive non-canonical interactions between miRNAs and their target mRNAs, and identified many novel interactions between miRNAs and noncoding RNAs.

A Comparative Study of the Effects of Two Approaches of Dynamic Assessment on the Reading Comprehension of Iranian EFL Learners

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Jila Naeini

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to examine and compare the impact of two Dynamic Assessment (DA approaches, that is, Feuerstein’s Mediated Learning Experience (MLE and Brown’s Graduated Prompt (GP on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. Therefore, a mixed methods approach consisting of a semi-structured interview, a pretest, an intervention program, a posttest, and a transfer test was applied to assess and compare the efficacy of two DA approaches. One hundred and two EFL learners taking a General English course at Islamic Azad University were assigned to two experimental groups (MLEG and GPG and one comparison group (CG. The participants in the MLEG took part in the MLE, and the participants in the GPG participated in the GP intervention program.  The results of the qualitative as well as the aggregate and disaggregated quantitative data analyses indicated that both intervention approaches of DA were effective in enhancing the learners’ reading comprehension.

Marketing the Texas Reading Club: A Guide for Youth Services Specialists.

Science.gov (United States)

Ash-Geisler, Viki

This manual is designed to help youth services specialists in libraries in Texas customize their Reading Club efforts for their communities. A successful reading club requires careful thought, extensive planning, and willing and eager participants. Attracting and engaging these participants is of primary importance, as is the reason for the…

An analysis of farm services centre (fsc) approach launched for agricultural extension in NWFP, pakistan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haq, I.; Ali, T.; Zafar, M.I.

2009-01-01

Agricultural extension services have a pivotal role in agricultural and rural development. It is the major source of technology dissemination and helps the farmers to rationalize the use of natural resources for a sustainable agricultural development. Globally, public-private partnership approach in Agricultural Extension is considered more effective, efficient, and responsive to different categories of farmers. In Pakistan, government of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has initiated a public-private partnership Extension Programme in the province. This is locally called as Farm Services Centre (FSC). This approach has the inbuilt mechanism of inputs delivery, market facilitation, exchange of experiences and diffusion of knowledge and technology. However, the extent to which this public-private partnership is instrumental in achieving aforementioned objectives is yet to be established. The present study was an attempt to analyze this public-private partnership approach by measuring its strengths and weaknesses. For this purpose, out of 24 districts of NWFP, two districts namely Swabi and Lakimarwat were selected randomly. From these two districts, 491 FSC's member farmers were selected as respondents for interview on random basis. The analysis showed that the most prominent strength of FSC was farmers empowerment with mean 4.05 and SD 1.29, while that of Agriculture Extension Department (AED) was effective message delivery. As per respondents, the major weakness of both (FSC and AED) systems was no marketing facility with mean 4.12 and 4.13 and SD 1.22 and 1.01 respectively. It is essential that the government should ensure the mandated activities at FSC forum particularly the facilitation by line agencies and NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar. It should be a forum of technology dissemination, agricultural surplus produce marketing and cooperative farming. Agricultural Extension Department should provide more facilities to the staff indulged in FSC

A Mixed Method Study of the Effects of iPod Touch, Partner-Reading, and Independent Practice on Reading Fluency Performance, Perceived Reading Efficacy, and Engagement of Second Grade Students

Science.gov (United States)

Wilder-Kingsby, Ceylynda

2014-01-01

This mixed method study explored three approaches to reading fluency and their impact on students' reading fluency, perceived reading efficacy, and engagement. The quantitative portion of the study was conducted with 182 second-grade students and was guided by the following questions: (a) Which instructional method, iPod Touch, student-pairing, or…

Reading is FUNdamental: The effect of a reading programme on vocabulary development in a high poverty township school

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Scheepers, Ruth

2008-12-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the development of the vocabulary of grade 7 learners in a reading project currently underway at a school in Atteridgeville, a township on the outskirts of Pretoria. A library has been established at the school and teachers throughout the school attend workshops designed to heighten their awareness of the value of reading and the importance of vocabulary, and to provide them with strategies to facilitate the development of reading. This paper focuses on the vocabulary development of grade 7 learners – they are in the senior phase of primary school and will soon be entering high school where they will be faced with more academic vocabulary in context-reduced textbooks. Learners’ vocabulary was tested early in the year and then again towards the end to assess whether increased access to books and reading had had an effect on vocabulary growth. Results revealed that learners at the project school showed a lack of vocabulary, even at the end of the study period, not only in terms of academic words but also high frequency words. Extensive reading alone is clearly not enough – learners need explicit vocabulary instruction: in order to read successfully at high school level, learners need a working knowledge of academic vocabulary, and this knowledge is developed by reading – but learners cannot read successfully without an adequate basic high-frequency vocabulary.

Global Approaches to Extension Practice: A Journal of Agricultural ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Journal Homepage Image ... from all areas of Agricultural Extension: rural sociology, environmental extension, extension communication ... Adoption of improved oil palm processing technology in Umuahia north local government area of Abia ...

Fostering Fifth Graders’ Reading Comprehension through the use of Intensive Reading in Physical Science

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Alethia Paola Bogoya González

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Reading comprehension in a content area needs to be seen from both the content and language perspectives. This paper examines the use of intensive reading, a strategy taken from the language teaching field, to help students improve their reading comprehension ability and develop understanding of science concepts. The study was carried out in a fifth grade class at a private bilingual institution of Bogotá. Reading was analyzed using a mixed-method approach that utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods. The first method was done through students’ interviews, artefacts, and a teacher’s journal, and the second by means of two reading tests, Cloze and CARI, Content Area Reading Inventory Test. The statistical analysis shows that students improved their reading comprehension ability as their scores for the post-test were higher than those of the pre-test; this increment is statistically significant as p ≤ .05 when applying a t-test. The qualitative analysis shows that structured reading practices lead to the development of students’ cognitive processes. Overall, the results indicate that reading in sciences hould be seen as dynamic process that incorporates learners’ strategies in order to develop conceptual understanding.

How Reading Volume Affects both Reading Fluency and Reading Achievement

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Richard L. ALLINGTON

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Long overlooked, reading volume is actually central to the development of reading proficiencies, especially in the development of fluent reading proficiency. Generally no one in schools monitors the actual volume of reading that children engage in. We know that the commonly used commercial core reading programs provide only material that requires about 15 minutes of reading activity daily. The remaining 75 minute of reading lessons is filled with many other activities such as completing workbook pages or responding to low-level literal questions about what has been read. Studies designed to enhance the volume of reading that children do during their reading lessons demonstrate one way to enhance reading development. Repeated readings have been widely used in fostering reading fluency but wide reading options seem to work faster and more broadly in developing reading proficiencies, including oral reading fluency.

High-performance file I/O in Java : existing approaches and bulk I/O extensions.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bonachea, D.; Dickens, P.; Thakur, R.; Mathematics and Computer Science; Univ. of California at Berkeley; Illinois Institute of Technology

2001-07-01

There is a growing interest in using Java as the language for developing high-performance computing applications. To be successful in the high-performance computing domain, however, Java must not only be able to provide high computational performance, but also high-performance I/O. In this paper, we first examine several approaches that attempt to provide high-performance I/O in Java - many of which are not obvious at first glance - and evaluate their performance on two parallel machines, the IBM SP and the SGI Origin2000. We then propose extensions to the Java I/O library that address the deficiencies in the Java I/O API and improve performance dramatically. The extensions add bulk (array) I/O operations to Java, thereby removing much of the overhead currently associated with array I/O in Java. We have implemented the extensions in two ways: in a standard JVM using the Java Native Interface (JNI) and in a high-performance parallel dialect of Java called Titanium. We describe the two implementations and present performance results that demonstrate the benefits of the proposed extensions.

What Is the Influence of Morphological Knowledge in the Early Stages of Reading Acquisition Among Low SES Children? A Graphical Modeling Approach

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Pascale Colé

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Children from low-SES families are known to show delays in aspects of language development which underpin reading acquisition such as vocabulary and listening comprehension. Research on the development of morphological skills in this group is scarce, and no studies exist in French. The present study investigated the involvement of morphological knowledge in the very early stages of reading acquisition (decoding, before reading comprehension can be reliably assessed. We assessed listening comprehension, receptive vocabulary, phoneme awareness, morphological awareness as well as decoding, word reading and non-verbal IQ in 703 French first-graders from low-SES families after 3 months of formal schooling (November. Awareness of derivational morphology was assessed using three oral tasks: Relationship Judgment (e.g., do these words belong to the same family or not? heat-heater … ham-hammer; Lexical Sentence Completion [e.g., Someone who runs is a …? (runner]; and Non-lexical Sentence Completion [e.g., Someone who lums is a…? (lummer]. The tasks differ on implicit/explicit demands and also tap different kinds of morphological knowledge. The Judgement task measures the phonological and semantic properties of the morphological relationship and the Sentence Completion tasks measure knowledge of morphological production rules. Data were processed using a graphical modeling approach which offers key information about how skills known to be involved in learning to read are organized in memory. This modeling approach was therefore useful in revealing a potential network which expresses the conditional dependence structure between skills, after which recursive structural equation modeling was applied to test specific hypotheses. Six main conclusions can be drawn from these analyses about low SES reading acquisition: (1 listening comprehension is at the heart of the reading acquisition process; (2 word reading depends directly on phonemic awareness and

Art of reading a journal article: Methodically and effectively

Science.gov (United States)

Subramanyam, RV

2013-01-01

Background: Reading scientific literature is mandatory for researchers and clinicians. With an overflow of medical and dental journals, it is essential to develop a method to choose and read the right articles. Objective: To outline a logical and orderly approach to reading a scientific manuscript. By breaking down the task into smaller, step-by-step components, one should be able to attain the skills to read a scientific article with ease. Methods: The reader should begin by reading the title, abstract and conclusions first. If a decision is made to read the entire article, the key elements of the article can be perused in a systematic manner effectively and efficiently. A cogent and organized method is presented to read articles published in scientific journals. Conclusion: One can read and appreciate a scientific manuscript if a systematic approach is followed in a simple and logical manner. PMID:23798833

Working Memory Intervention: A Reading Comprehension Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Perry, Tracy L.; Malaia, Evguenia

2013-01-01

For any complex mental task, people rely on working memory. Working memory capacity (WMC) is one predictor of success in learning. Historically, attempts to improve verbal WM through training have not been effective. This study provided elementary students with WM consolidation efficiency training to answer the question, Can reading comprehension…

Collaborative Strategic Reading with University EFL Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Zoghi, Masoud; Mustapha, Ramlee; Maasum, Tg. Nor Rizan Mohd.

2010-01-01

The present study was an attempt to probe into the feasibility and effectiveness of a reading instructional approach called MCSR--Modified Collaborative Strategic Reading. Based on a pretest-posttest design, MCSR was implemented with 42 university-level EFL freshmen. They met once a week and received EFL reading instruction according to MCSR for…

Reading apps for children: Readability from the design perspective

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Mohammed, Wasan Abdulwahab; Husni, Husniza

2017-10-01

Electronic reading for young children opens new avenues especially with the advance of modern reading devices. The readability of mobile learning applications has received extensive attention by the designers and developers. The reason for such concern is due to its importance in determining usability related issues especially in the design context for children. In many cases, children find it difficult to interact with mobile reading apps. This is because apps for reading and for entertainment require different features. As such, this study sets out three objectives: 1) to evaluate five reading apps for young children from design perspectives; 2) to examine the readability for current existing mobile apps for reading and 3) to propose and evaluate mobile apps UI guideline for readability. Readability indices, observation and interview were conducted on 6 - 8 years old students. The obtained result showed that certain reading apps provide better reading experience for children than others. Some of the reasons are mostly related to the design characteristics embedded within the app. In addition, the use of animation was found to stimulate children reading experience as it is believed to offer the interactivity elements to gain their interest and willingness to read. These findings are believed to provide the recommendations and insights for designers of reading apps for children.

Introducing COCOS: codon consequence scanner for annotating reading frame changes induced by stop-lost and frame shift variants.

Science.gov (United States)

Butkiewicz, Mariusz; Haines, Jonathan L; Bush, William S

2017-05-15

Reading frame altering genomic variants can impact gene expression levels and the structure of protein products, thus potentially inducing disease phenotypes. Current annotation approaches report the impact of such variants in the context of altered DNA sequence only; attributes of the resulting transcript, reading frame and translated protein product are not reported. To remedy this shortcoming, we present a new genetic annotation approach termed Codon Consequence Scanner (COCOS). Implemented as an Ensembl variant effect predictor (VEP) plugin, COCOS captures amino acid sequence alterations stemming from variants that produce an altered reading frame, such as stop-lost variants and small insertions and deletions (InDels). To highlight its significance, COCOS was applied to data from the 1000 Genomes Project. Transcripts affected by stop-lost variants introduce a median of 15 amino acids, while InDels have a more extensive impact with a median of 66 amino acids being incorporated. Captured sequence alterations are written out in FASTA format and can be further analyzed for impact on the underlying protein structure. COCOS is available to all users on github: https://github.com/butkiem/COCOS. mariusz.butkiewicz@case.edu. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

COGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF THE READING IN THE PROCESS RECOGNITION OF WORDS

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Jussara Oliveira Araújo

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The reading is a hard activity to being developed, demanding an extensive learning. On this perspective, the objective is describe and analyze the abilities of recognition of words through of Model of Recognition of the Words, proposed by Ellis (1995. The results could contribute to a more efficient pedagogical practice in the formation of reading competence.

Le fort I osteotomy approach for advanced nasopharyngeal angiofibroma with intracranial extension: Report of a case

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"Naraghi M

2002-08-01

Full Text Available Angiofibromas are the most common benign tumors of the nasopharynx, Intracranial extension has been reported in approximately 20-25% of cases. Intracranial extension may be difficult to treat because of poor exposure that may lead to recurrence. A 16-year-old male patient presented with a 6-month history of nasal obstruction, intermittent epistaxis, right superior orbital fissure syndrome, and proptosis. Imaging studies revealed a large right sinonasal mass with significant intracranial and infratemporal extensions. The tumor was resected by Le fort I technique because of dissatisfaction with other approaches. Postoperative period was uneventful and follow-up visits showed marked improvement in proptosis and ophthalmologic symptoms, without the evidence of tumor recurrence. Commonly used to treat facial deformities. The Le Fort I osteotomy with down fracturing of the entire palate has been adopted as a surgical option in the management of some angiofibromas. Compared with other popular techniques, it provides excellent exposure for angiofibromas. The merits and limitations of this approach as well as its details are discussed.

Teaching Reading and Spelling to Adult Learners: The Multisensory Structured Language Approach

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Ali, Shamim

2012-01-01

All over the World most effective methods for teaching reading to beginning-level adults have been applied. My continuing challenge has been to determine how reading acquisition research can be applied to teaching reading to adults. In this article, I describe the techniques I have found most useful; I hope other teachers working with beginning…

Implications of Schema-based Pre-Reading Tasks in Facilitating ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The subjects of the study were 56 students taking the Reading. Skills (FLEn ... The available research on reading suggests that reading .... a whole. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND ..... Mixed Methods Approaches. (3rd ed.). ... A Concise.

Teaching Reading for Students with Intellectual Disabilities: A Systematic Review

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Alnahdi, Ghaleb Hamad

2015-01-01

A systematic review of the literature related to instructional strategies to improve reading skills for students with intellectual disabilities was conducted. Studies reviewed were within three categories; early reading approaches, comprehensive approaches, and one method approach. It was concluded that students with intellectual disabilities are…

An ESP Genre-based Approach to the Teaching of Reading

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Maria Raquel Bambirra

2011-07-01

Full Text Available This article aims to present the work done with a group of undergraduate students of ‘Technology in Normalization and Industrial Quality’ at CEFET/MG, during the first semester of 2005. The subject matter English for Specific Purposes was planned and taught within the theoretical principles provided by the Australian theories on textual genre. The main aspects considered were: the collective knowledge construction, the complete interrelation between texts and their social roles, and Halliday’s contributions related to the concepts of language and text (1978 and to the context of culture (1989. The learning assessment was socialized and continuous, carried out through several informal classroom activities and two formal written assignments. It seems that the students feel more motivated and show major progress in developing their reading skills at courses of English for Specific Purposes when these courses are taught using a textual genre approach.

libgapmis: extending short-read alignments.

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Alachiotis, Nikolaos; Berger, Simon; Flouri, Tomáš; Pissis, Solon P; Stamatakis, Alexandros

2013-01-01

A wide variety of short-read alignment programmes have been published recently to tackle the problem of mapping millions of short reads to a reference genome, focusing on different aspects of the procedure such as time and memory efficiency, sensitivity, and accuracy. These tools allow for a small number of mismatches in the alignment; however, their ability to allow for gaps varies greatly, with many performing poorly or not allowing them at all. The seed-and-extend strategy is applied in most short-read alignment programmes. After aligning a substring of the reference sequence against the high-quality prefix of a short read--the seed--an important problem is to find the best possible alignment between a substring of the reference sequence succeeding and the remaining suffix of low quality of the read--extend. The fact that the reads are rather short and that the gap occurrence frequency observed in various studies is rather low suggest that aligning (parts of) those reads with a single gap is in fact desirable. In this article, we present libgapmis, a library for extending pairwise short-read alignments. Apart from the standard CPU version, it includes ultrafast SSE- and GPU-based implementations. libgapmis is based on an algorithm computing a modified version of the traditional dynamic-programming matrix for sequence alignment. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the functions of the CPU version provided in this library accelerate the computations by a factor of 20 compared to other programmes. The analogous SSE- and GPU-based implementations accelerate the computations by a factor of 6 and 11, respectively, compared to the CPU version. The library also provides the user the flexibility to split the read into fragments, based on the observed gap occurrence frequency and the length of the read, thereby allowing for a variable, but bounded, number of gaps in the alignment. We present libgapmis, a library for extending pairwise short-read alignments. We

EXTENSION EDUCATION SYMPOSIUM: reinventing extension as a resource--what does the future hold?

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Mirando, M A; Bewley, J M; Blue, J; Amaral-Phillips, D M; Corriher, V A; Whittet, K M; Arthur, N; Patterson, D J

2012-10-01

The mission of the Cooperative Extension Service, as a component of the land-grant university system, is to disseminate new knowledge and to foster its application and use. Opportunities and challenges facing animal agriculture in the United States have changed dramatically over the past few decades and require the use of new approaches and emerging technologies that are available to extension professionals. Increased federal competitive grant funding for extension, the creation of eXtension, the development of smartphone and related electronic technologies, and the rapidly increasing popularity of social media created new opportunities for extension educators to disseminate knowledge to a variety of audiences and engage these audiences in electronic discussions. Competitive grant funding opportunities for extension efforts to advance animal agriculture became available from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and have increased dramatically in recent years. The majority of NIFA funding opportunities require extension efforts to be integrated with research, and NIFA encourages the use of eXtension and other cutting-edge approaches to extend research to traditional clientele and nontraditional audiences. A case study is presented to illustrate how research and extension were integrated to improve the adoption of AI by beef producers. Those in agriculture are increasingly resorting to the use of social media venues such as Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter to access information required to support their enterprises. Use of these various approaches by extension educators requires appreciation of the technology and an understanding of how the target audiences access information available on social media. Technology to deliver information is changing rapidly, and Cooperative Extension Service professionals will need to continuously evaluate digital technology and social media tools to appropriately integrate them into learning and

Types and sequences of self-regulated reading of low-achieving adolescents in relation to reading task achievement

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Milliano, Ilona; van Gelderen, Amos; Sleegers, P.J.C.

2016-01-01

This study examines the relationship between types and sequences of self-regulated reading activities in task-oriented reading with quality of task achievement of 51 low-achieving adolescents (Grade 8). The study used think aloud combined with video observations to analyse the students' approach of

Read and Move: A New Approach to Read-Aloud Time in Primary Grades

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Kreider, Carri S.

2018-01-01

Literacy is the foundation of education, and so modern education devotes significant school time to promoting and developing literacy. Yet we also need to ensure that young bodies and minds are ready to absorb their literacy lessons. Integrating physical exercise with reading activities in unique ways can be a great benefit to young learners.

Reading and the reference librarian the importance to library service of staff reading habits

CERN Document Server

Dilevko, Juris

2003-01-01

""Informative""--Midwest Book Review; ""interesting and important...a page turner""--Catholic Library World; ""detailed...required reading...valuable...extensive body of very detailed information...outstanding""--LISR: Science Direct; ""thought-provoking...informative...solid, sensitive research...an important new primary resource""--Colorado Libraries; ""most remarkable and thought provoking...well done...articulate and insightful...fascinating...interesting...important and worthwhile""--Library & Information Science Research. The authors surveyed both academic reference librarians and publ

The Potential of Web 2.0 Tools to Promote Reading Engagement in a General Education Course

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Park, Seung Won

2013-01-01

General education classes involve extensive course readings. College instructors have a limited time to cover every detail of the materials students are supposed to learn in class; thus, they expect students to learn through course readings. However, many college students demonstrate a low level of engagement in course reading tasks. Existing…

Transforming Bloom's Taxonomy into Classroom Practice: A Practical yet Comprehensive Approach to Promote Critical Reading and Student Participation

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Mulcare, Daniel M.; Shwedel, Allan

2017-01-01

This article presents the Critical Reading Topics approach, a pedagogical method employed to promote deep thinking in a variety of politics courses. Derived from principles articulated in active learning, critical thinking, backward design, and flipped classroom literature, this method utilizes Bloom's Taxonomy as the scaffolding for students to…

Prediction of Learning and Comprehension when Adolescents Read Multiple Texts: The Roles of Word-Level Processing, Strategic Approach, and Reading Motivation

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Braten, Ivar; Ferguson, Leila E.; Anmarkrud, Oistein; Stromso, Helge I.

2013-01-01

Sixty-five Norwegian 10th graders used the software Read&Answer 2.0 (Vidal-Abarca et al., 2011) to read five different texts presenting conflicting views on the controversial scientific issue of sun exposure and health. Participants were administered a multiple-choice topic-knowledge measure before and after reading, a word recognition task,…

A Daily Diary Study of Reading Motivation inside and outside of School: A Dynamic Approach to Motivation to Read

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Neugebauer, Sabina Rak

2013-01-01

Qualitative literacy motivation research increasingly documents students' divergent motivations to read in and outside of the school setting. However, commonly used assessments of literacy motivation do not measure the contribution of in-school and outside-school settings to students' motivation to read. Consequently, quantitative research has not…

SRBreak: A read-depth and split-read framework to identify breakpoints of different events inside simple copy-number variable regions

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HOANG T NGUYEN

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Copy-number variation (CNV has been associated with increased risk of complex diseases. High throughput sequencing (HTS technologies facilitate the detection of copy-number variable regions (CNVRs and their breakpoints. This helps in understanding genome structures of genomes as well as their evolution process. Various approaches have been proposed for detecting CNV breakpoints, but currently it is still challenging for tools based on a single analysis method to identify breakpoints of CNVs. It has been shown, however, that pipelines which integrate multiple approaches are able to report more reliable breakpoints. Here, based on HTS data, we have developed a pipeline to identify approximate breakpoints (±10 bp relating to different ancestral events within a specific CNVR. The pipeline combines read-depth and split-read information to infer breakpoints, using information from multiple samples to allow an imputation approach to be taken. The main steps involve using a normal mixture model to cluster samples into different groups, followed by simple kernel-based approaches to maximise information obtained from read-depth and split-read approaches, after which common breakpoints of groups are inferred. The pipeline uses split-read information directly from CIGAR strings of BAM files, without using a re-alignment step. On simulated data sets, it was able to report breakpoints for very low-coverage samples including those for which only single-end reads were available. When applied to three loci from existing human resequencing data sets (NEGR1, LCE3, IRGM the pipeline obtained good concordance with results from the 1000 Genomes Project (92%, 100% and 82%, respectively.The package is available at https://github.com/hoangtn/SRBreak, and also as a docker-based application at https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/hoangtn/srbreak/.

Functional anatomy of listening and reading comprehension during development.

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Berl, Madison M; Duke, Elizabeth S; Mayo, Jessica; Rosenberger, Lisa R; Moore, Erin N; VanMeter, John; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Vaidya, Chandan J; Gaillard, William Davis

2010-08-01

Listening and reading comprehension of paragraph-length material are considered higher-order language skills fundamental to social and academic functioning. Using ecologically relevant language stimuli that were matched for difficulty according to developmental level, we analyze the effects of task, age, neuropsychological skills, and post-task performance on fMRI activation and hemispheric laterality. Areas of supramodal language processing are identified, with the most robust region being left-lateralized activation along the superior temporal sulcus. Functionally, this conjunction has a role in semantic and syntactic processing, leading us to refer to this conjunction as "comprehension cortex." Different from adults, supramodal areas for children include less extensive inferior frontal gyrus but more extensive right cerebellum and right temporal pole. Broader neuroanatomical pathways are recruited for reading, reflecting the more active processing and larger set of cognitive demands needed for reading compared to listening to stories. ROI analyses reveal that reading is a less lateralized language task than listening in inferior frontal and superior temporal areas, which likely reflects the difficulty of the task as children in this study are still developing their reading skills. For listening to stories, temporal activation is stable by age four with no correlations with age, neuropsychological skills or post-task performance. In contrast, frontal activation during listening to stories occurs more often in older children, and frontal activation is positively correlated with better performance on comprehension questions, suggesting that the activation of frontal networks may reflect greater integration and depth of story processing. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

"One Glove Does Not Fit All" in Bilingual Reading Acquisition: Using the Age of First Bilingual Language Exposure to Understand Optimal Contexts for Reading Success

Science.gov (United States)

Kovelman, Ioulia; Salah-Ud-Din, Maha; Berens, Melody S.; Petitto, Laura-Ann

2015-01-01

In teaching reading, educators strive to find the balance between a code-emphasis approach and a meaning-oriented literacy approach. However, little is known about how different approaches to literacy can benefit bilingual children's early reading acquisition. To investigate the novel hypothesis that children's age of first bilingual exposure can…

Accessing word meaning: Semantic word knowledge and reading comprehension in Dutch monolingual and bilingual fifth-graders

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cremer, M.

2013-01-01

Word knowledge is one of the key elements in reading comprehension and by extension in school success. At the same time, it is not quite clear which components of lexical knowledge play a role in reading. Is it enough to recognize the words we read? Do we need an in-depth understanding of their

The Impact of a Therapy Dog Program on Children's Reading: Follow-Up and Extension to ELL Students

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Kirnan, Jean; Ventresco, Nina E.; Gardner, Thomas

2018-01-01

An initiative in which therapy dogs were integrated into a school-wide reading curriculum was analyzed to determine the effect on student reading in the program's second year. Prior research on the first year of this specific program (Kirnan et al. in "Early Child Educ J" 44(6):637-651) demonstrated improvement in reading scores only for…

Internal and External Readings of Same

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hardt, Daniel

2016-01-01

Same is an anaphoric element that performs a comparison, which can either be external or internal to a sentence. Hardt and Mikkelsen (2015) show that same, unlike other anaphoric expressions, imposes a parallelism constraint, and they present three types of examples showing that same...... is infelicitous in the absence of parallelism. Hardt and Mikkelsen propose an account that applies uniformly to internal and external readings; however, the evidence they present largely targets external readings – they don’t offer empirical evidence that clearly supports the uniform approach. Furthermore, Barker...... (2007) argues that internal readings must be treated differently than external readings. In this paper, I show that the parallelism effects observed by Hardt and Mikkelsen in fact apply to internal readings as well. This provides support for a uniform treatment of internal and external readings of same...

The Inculcation of Loving Reading Quran Values at the Reading Quran Institution, Home, and Community

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Wirdanengsih Wirdanengsih

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was intended to describe the value of loving reading Al-Quran that was implemented by three education centers; Reading Quran Insitution Awaliyah, Family and Community Education for children between 9-12 years old in Nagari Balai Gurah. Also, this research was to discover how is the implementation of loving reading Al-Quran values and who are involved in it.  The result indicated that the implementation of the values of loving reading Al-Quran basically used surveillance approaches and guidance from the tutors, parents, and community in Reading Al-Quran. The socialization pattern that was used in implementing the value of love reading Al-Quran at Reading Quran Institution and family tended to use flexible patterns between authoritative and permissive patterns. Parties who involved in implementing the value of loving reading Al-Quran were the Awaliyah Institution, teacher and management, and family consisting of fathers, mothers, siblings, and grandparents. The uniqueness came from the roles of cultural social values in the community stating children who did not learn and love Al-Quran will be an embarrassment to the family. Moreover, the ceremony of Khatam Quran became the strong factor for children in implementing loving reading Al-Quran, due to this ceremony there was a process of social acknowledgement to the children who love reading Al-Quran.

Teaching Textual Conversations: Intertextuality in the College Reading Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Armstrong, Sonya L.; Newman, Mary

2011-01-01

In this article, a model of intertextuality is introduced as an instructional approach for postsecondary developmental reading courses. This model involves a scaffolded, schema building approach to teaching college reading that aims to link core material (a text, a concept, or specific academic content) with supplementary texts that focus on…

A Lesson Plan Incorporating Collaborative Strategic Reading

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

陈江萍

2017-01-01

This essay is going to have an in-depth analysis of the Collaborative Strategic Reading, a four-step reading comprehen-sion strategy popular in the Western classrooms. It will start with some brief introduction about this instructional approach in company with its theoretical rationale and research evidence for its effectiveness of improving learners 'reading competence. Fo-cused on the previewing skill, the first step of the reading instruction, a modified lesson plan is designed in the Chinese high school setting, followed by justification of the major elements of the plan, and some practical implications.

A Lesson Plan Incorporating Collaborative Strategic Reading

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

陈江萍

2017-01-01

This essay is going to have an in-depth analysis of the Collaborative Strategic Reading, a four-step reading comprehen?sion strategy popular in the Western classrooms. It will start with some brief introduction about this instructional approach in company with its theoretical rationale and research evidence for its effectiveness of improving learners 'reading competence. Fo?cused on the previewing skill, the first step of the reading instruction, a modified lesson plan is designed in the Chinese high school setting, followed by justification of the major elements of the plan, and some practical implications.

Approaches to Reading with Multiple Lenses of Interpretation

Science.gov (United States)

Troise, Melissa

2007-01-01

High school teacher Melissa Troise challenges students to recognize the relationships that exist between literary theories, such as Marxism, feminism, and postcolonialism, and urges students to expand their contexts for reading texts by accessing and combining theories. Troise believes theory provides students with the potential to better…

Intertextual Content Analysis: An Approach for Analysing Text-Related Discussions with Regard to Movability in Reading and How Text Content Is Handled

Science.gov (United States)

Hallesson, Yvonne; Visén, Pia

2018-01-01

Reading and discussing texts as a means for learning subject content are regular features within educational contexts. This paper presents an approach for intertextual content analysis (ICA) of such text-related discussions revealing what the participants make of the text. Thus, in contrast to many other approaches for analysing conversation that…

Do reading and spelling share orthographic representations? Evidence from developmental dysgraphia.

Science.gov (United States)

Hepner, Christopher; McCloskey, Michael; Rapp, Brenda

Both spelling and reading depend on knowledge of the spellings of words. Despite this commonality, observed dissociations between spelling and reading in cases of acquired and developmental deficits suggest some degree of independence between the cognitive mechanisms involved in these skills. In this paper, we examine the relationship between spelling and reading in two children with developmental dysgraphia. For both children, we identified significant deficits in spelling that affected the processing of orthographic long-term memory representations of words. We then examined their reading skills for similar difficulties. Even with extensive testing, we found no evidence of a reading deficit for one of the children. We propose that there may be an underlying difficulty that specifically affects the learning of orthographic word representations for spelling. These results lead us to conclude that at least some components of lexical orthographic representation and processing develop with considerable independence in spelling and reading.

Reading for meaning : the effects of Developmental Education on motivation and achievement in reading informative texts in primary school

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Rijk, Yvonne; de Mey, Langha; de Haan, Dorian; van Oers, Bert; Volman, Monique

2017-01-01

Content-oriented reading interventions that focus on the integration of motivational enhancement and strategy instruction have been found to have positive effects. Developmental education (DE) in the Netherlands is an innovative content-oriented approach in which reading is an integral part of an

Autonomous Mobile Robot That Can Read

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Létourneau Dominic

2004-01-01

Full Text Available The ability to read would surely contribute to increased autonomy of mobile robots operating in the real world. The process seems fairly simple: the robot must be capable of acquiring an image of a message to read, extract the characters, and recognize them as symbols, characters, and words. Using an optical Character Recognition algorithm on a mobile robot however brings additional challenges: the robot has to control its position in the world and its pan-tilt-zoom camera to find textual messages to read, potentially having to compensate for its viewpoint of the message, and use the limited onboard processing capabilities to decode the message. The robot also has to deal with variations in lighting conditions. In this paper, we present our approach demonstrating that it is feasible for an autonomous mobile robot to read messages of specific colors and font in real-world conditions. We outline the constraints under which the approach works and present results obtained using a Pioneer 2 robot equipped with a Pentium 233 MHz and a Sony EVI-D30 pan-tilt-zoom camera.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THREE READING APPROACHES AND AN ORAL LANGUAGE STIMULATION PROGRAM WITH DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN IN THE PRIMARY GRADES--AN INTERIM REPORT AFTER ONE YEAR OF THE COOPERATIVE READING PROJECT.

Science.gov (United States)

DUNN, LLOYD M.; AND OTHERS

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THREE APPROACHES TO TEACHING BEGINNING READING AND THE INFLUENCE OF AN ORAL LANGUAGE STIMULATION PROGRAM ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN IS REPORTED IN THE FIRST-YEAR REPORT OF A 2-YEAR INTERVENTION STUDY. SUBJECTS WERE 608 FIRST-GRADE PUPILS FROM 12 ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN AN INNER-CITY AREA. THE THREE EXPERIMENTAL…

Close Reading of Literary Nonfiction: The Three-Column Journal

Science.gov (United States)

McConn, Matthew

2018-01-01

The Common Core State Standards have placed more emphasis on the close reading of all texts, and have made a point of increasing the use of nonfiction in secondary English classrooms. In this article, the author describes an approach for implementing close reading of literary nonfiction. The approach comes from a small-scale classroom-based…

Measurement properties of continuous text reading performance tests.

Science.gov (United States)

Brussee, Tamara; van Nispen, Ruth M A; van Rens, Ger H M B

2014-11-01

Measurement properties of tests to assess reading acuity or reading performance have not been extensively evaluated. This study aims to provide an overview of the literature on available continuous text reading tests and their measurement properties. A literature search was performed in PubMed, Embase and PsycInfo. Subsequently, information on design and content of reading tests, study design and measurement properties were extracted using consensus-based standards for selection of health measurement instruments. Quality of studies, reading tests and measurement properties were systematically assessed using pre-specified criteria. From 2334 identified articles, 20 relevant articles were found on measurement properties of three reading tests in various languages: IReST, MNread Reading Test and Radner Reading Charts. All three reading tests scored high on content validity. Reproducibility studies (repeated measurements between different testing sessions) of the IReST and MNread of commercially available reading tests in different languages were missing. The IReST scored best on inter-language comparison, the MNread scored well in repeatability studies (repeated measurements under the same conditions) and the Radner showed good reproducibility in studies. Although in daily practice there are other continuous text reading tests available meeting the criteria of this review, measurement properties were described in scientific studies for only three of them. Of the few available studies, the quality and content of study design and methodology used varied. For testing existing reading tests and the development of new ones, for example in other languages, we make several recommendations, including careful description of patient characteristics, use of objective and subjective lighting levels, good control of working distance, documentation of the number of raters and their training, careful documentation of scoring rules and the use of Bland-Altman analyses or similar for

Developing L2 Listening Fluency through Extended Listening-Focused Activities in an Extensive Listening Programme

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Anna C-S.; Millett, Sonia

2016-01-01

This study investigates the effects on developing L2 listening fluency through doing extended listening-focused activities after reading and listening to audio graded readers. Seventy-six EFL university students read and listened to a total of 15 graded readers in a 15-week extensive listening programme. They were divided into three groups (Group…

Belles-Lettres Reading Strategies in the Process of Foreign Language Teaching

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander S. Komarov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The article is devoted to some of the teaching strategies based on the peculiarities of belles-lettres text. The author of the article analyses the peculiarities of the belles-lettres text which exert influence on the process of teaching reading skills and thus should be taken into account by foreign language teachers in their work with this type of text. The author argues that teaching belles-lettres reading skills should be centered on the five-level communication process between writer and reader. The teacher's aim is to create or adjust a system of reading instruction within the five levels so that he/she could improve students' reading skills. In the article, it is stated that the process of teaching reading skills should be congruent with the process of interpersonal communication between writer and reader. The author outlines the content of the teacher's approach to the work with this type of text within the process of foreign language instruction. The author describes two approaches to teaching belles-lettres reading skills as well as shows the prospects for the subjective approach. He also states high productivity and effectiveness of the subjective approach in teaching foreign languages. The article shows the importance of involving students who specialize in sciences into the process of belles-lettres reading while studying a foreign language for specific purposes.

Developing reading literacy by reading badge

OpenAIRE

Rejc, Blanka

2017-01-01

Reading is a fundamental activity of our society and is present in all areas of a person’s life. Authors who deal with reading define reading with different definitions, some of them I also presented in my master’s degree thesis. The ways of reading, typology of readers and knowledge of different reading models are only some of the important theoretical facts that serve as a basis for the research and defining reading. Reading motivation is an important motivational factor, which encourages a...

Exploring the Relationship between Adolescent's Reading Skills, Reading Motivation and Reading Habits

Science.gov (United States)

McGeown, Sarah P.; Duncan, Lynne G.; Griffiths, Yvonne M.; Stothard, Sue E.

2015-01-01

The present study examines the extent to which adolescents' reading affect (reading motivation) and behaviour (reading habits) predict different components of reading (word reading, comprehension, summarisation and text reading speed) and also adds to the limited research examining group differences (gender, age, ability) in adolescents' reading…

Clinical and microperimetric predictors of reading speed in low vision patients: a structural equation modeling approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Giacomelli, Giovanni; Virgili, Gianni; Giansanti, Fabrizio; Sato, Giovanni; Cappello, Ezio; Cruciani, Filippo; Varano, Monica; Menchini, Ugo

2013-06-27

To investigate the simultaneous association of several psychophysical measures with reading ability in patients with mild and moderate low vision attending rehabilitation services. Standard measurements of reading ability (Minnesota Reading [MNREAD] charts), visual acuity (Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy Study [ETDRS] charts), contrast sensitivity (Pelli-Robson charts), reading contrast threshold (Reading Explorer [REX] charts), retinal sensitivity, and fixation stability and localization (Micro Perimeter 1 [MP1] fundus perimetry) were obtained in 160 low vision patients with better eye visual acuity ranging from 0.3 to 1.0 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution and affected by either age-related macular degeneration or diabetic retinopathy. All variables were moderately associated with reading performance measures (MNREAD reading speed and reading acuity and REX reading contrast threshold), as well as among each other. In a structural equation model, REX reading contrast threshold was highly associated with MNREAD reading speed (standardized coefficient, 0.63) and moderately associated with reading acuity (standardized coefficient, -0.30). REX test also mediated the effects of Pelli-Robson contrast sensitivity (standardized coefficient, 0.44), MP1 fixation eccentricity (standardized coefficient, -0.19), and the mean retinal sensitivity (standardized coefficient, 0.23) on reading performance. The MP1 fixation stability was associated with both MNREAD reading acuity (standardized coefficient, -0.24) and MNREAD reading speed (standardized coefficient, 0.23), while ETDRS visual acuity only affected reading acuity (standardized coefficient, 0.44). Fixation instability and contrast sensitivity loss are key factors limiting reading performance of patients with mild or moderate low vision. REX charts directly assess the impact of text contrast on letter recognition and text navigation and may be a useful aid in reading rehabilitation.

English L2 reading getting to the bottom

CERN Document Server

Birch, Barbara M

2014-01-01

English L2 Reading, Third Edition offers teachers research-based insights into bottom-up skills in reading English as a second language and a solid foundation on which to build reading instruction. Core linguistic and psycholinguistic concepts are presented within the context of their application to teaching. The goal is to balance or supplement (not replace) top-down approaches and methodologies with effective low-level options for teaching English reading. The text's pedagogical features- Questions, Study Guide Questions. Discussion Questions, Spotlight on Teaching sections- engage readers o

Evaluation of Models of the Reading Process.

Science.gov (United States)

Balajthy, Ernest

A variety of reading process models have been proposed and evaluated in reading research. Traditional approaches to model evaluation specify the workings of a system in a simplified fashion to enable organized, systematic study of the system's components. Following are several statistical methods of model evaluation: (1) empirical research on…

The Online Reading Habits of Malaysian Students

Science.gov (United States)

Abidin, Mohammad Jafre Bin Zainol; Pourmohammadi, Majid; Varasingam, Nalini A/P; Lean, Ooi Choon

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the differences in online reading habits between genders and investigate the relationship between socio-economic status and online reading habits. Using a questionnaire, a quantitative approach was administered to 240 Form-Four students from four secondary schools in Penang Island, Malaysia. Findings…

Responsive Guided Reading in Grades K-5: Simplifying Small-Group Instruction

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Berne, Jennifer; Degener, Sophie C.

2010-01-01

Guided reading is a staple of elementary literacy instruction, yet planning and conducting reading groups can be time consuming and challenging. This hands-on book presents an innovative approach to guided reading that is manageable even for teachers who are new to small-group, differentiated reading instruction. Numerous classroom examples…

Developmental, Component-Based Model of Reading Fluency: An Investigation of Predictors of Word-Reading Fluency, Text-Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Young-Suk Grace

2015-01-01

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity)-how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word reading fluency and reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word reading fluency and reading comprehension. We examined (1) developmentally changing relations among word reading fluency, listening comprehension, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension; (2) the relation of reading comprehension to text reading fluency; (3) unique emergent literacy predictors (i.e., phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, morphological awareness, letter name knowledge, vocabulary) of text reading fluency vs. word reading fluency; and (4) unique language and cognitive predictors (e.g., vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, theory of mind) of text reading fluency vs. reading comprehension. These questions were addressed using longitudinal data (two timepoints; Mean age = 5;24 & 6;08) from Korean-speaking children ( N = 143). Results showed that listening comprehension was related to text reading fluency at time 2, but not at time 1. At both times text reading fluency was related to reading comprehension, and reading comprehension was related to text reading fluency over and above word reading fluency and listening comprehension. Orthographic awareness was related to text reading fluency over and above other emergent literacy skills and word reading fluency. Vocabulary and grammatical knowledge were independently related to text reading fluency and reading comprehension whereas theory of mind was related to reading comprehension, but not text reading fluency. These results reveal developmental nature of relations and mechanism of text reading fluency in reading development.

Reading, Writing, and the Study of Literature.

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Biddle, Arthur W., Ed.; Fulwiler, Toby, Ed.

Approaching literary study from two distinct yet interlocking perspectives (by looking at the major genres of literature and by examining the forms in which students of literature are expected to write about the literature they read), this book has two main sections. Following the Prelude, which treats the relationships between reading and writing…

Black English Annotations for Elementary Reading Programs.

Science.gov (United States)

Prasad, Sandre

This report describes a program that uses annotations in the teacher's editions of existing reading programs to indicate the characteristics of black English that may interfere with the reading process of black children. The first part of the report provides a rationale for the annotation approach, explaining that the discrepancy between written…

A facility for creating Python extensions in C++

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dubois, P F

1998-01-01

Python extensions are usually created by writing the glue that connects Python to the desired new functionality in the C language. While simple extensions do not require much effort, to do the job correctly with full error checking is tedious and prone to errors in reference counting and to memory leaks, especially when errors occur. The resulting program is difficult to read and maintain. By designing suitable C++ classes to wrap the Python C API, we are able to produce extensions that are correct and which clean up after themselves correctly when errors occur. This facility also integrates the C++ and Python exception facilities. This paper briefly describes our package for this purpose, named CXX. The emphasis is on our design choices and the way these contribute to the construction of accurate Python extensions. We also briefly relate the way CXX's facilities for sequence classes allow use of C++'s Standard Template Library (STL) algorithms on C++ sequences

The Teaching Reading With Virtual Technology in Education Context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vera Wannmacher Pereira

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This research had the specific objectives: produce virtual reading materials to the 7th grade of elementary high school students; develop workshops from these materials for these students; check the benefits of these workshops to the student`s reading comprehension development and also their the linguistic learning knowledge; produce an e-book to the teachers; provide this e-book to the publisher`s website at PUCRS. The methodology involved: conducting cooperative work around educational actions (application of virtual materials produced in workshops, research (development and implementation of research instruments and extension (production and availability of e-book. The results were: a productive network between University and schools; a set of reading comprehension material to the 7th grade of elementary school students; students’ reading comprehension development and learning language skills in the test applied before and after the workshops; the e-book which was developed and it is available on the EDIPUCRS site.

READING HABITS AND PREFERENCES OF EFL POST GRADUATES: A CASE STUDY

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Noorizah Mohd. Noor

2011-07-01

Full Text Available In recent years, more emphasis has been given on the role of the learner in the language learning process considering that language learning is primarily a learner’s oriented activity. Thus, learners’ needs and interests should be taken into consideration for effective language learning and teaching to take place. One significant area where learners’ preferences influence their learning can be seen in reading. In any academic or higher learning context, reading is perceived as the most prominent academic language skill for all second and foreign language learners. It is through reading that these learners learn new information and become able to synthesize, evaluate and interpret in order to learn more about their subject matter. Pursuing a postgraduate study requires extensive reading practices which will enable the learners to extend their literacy development.  The present study examines the reading habits and preferences of a group of EFL graduate students. Data was collected through a questionnaire and analysed quantitatively. The findings will report on: i the types of reading materials preferred ii reasons for reading and iii the preferred language for reading. To conclude, the paper will further discuss the implications of the findings in terms of instructional materials development within an EFL context. Key words: EFL learners, reading habits, reading preferences, reading behaviour

Using Vocal and Silent Reading Approaches for the Enhancement ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nekky Umera

An International Multi-Disciplinary Journal. Vol. 3 (1) ... expresses his thoughts and feelings in such a way that the person can be ... creative, critical and evaluative. .... In the first week, the research assistants taught the oral and silent reading.

The Brazilian Experience with Agroecological Extension: A Critical Analysis of Reform in a Pluralistic Extension System

Science.gov (United States)

Diesel, Vivien; Miná Dias, Marcelo

2016-01-01

Purpose: To analyze the Brazilian experience in designing and implementing a recent extension policy reform based on agroecology, and reflect on its wider theoretical implications for extension reform literature. Design/methodology/approach: Using a critical public analysis we characterize the evolution of Brazilian federal extension policy…

Application of the non-extensive statistical approach to high energy particle collisions

Science.gov (United States)

Bíró, Gábor; Barnaföldi, Gergely Gábor; Biró, Tamás Sándor; Ürmössy, Károly

2017-06-01

In high-energy collisions the number of created particles is far less than the thermodynamic limit, especially in small colliding systems (e.g. proton-proton). Therefore final-state effects and fluctuations in the one-particle energy distribution are appreciable. As a consequence the characterization of identified hadron spectra with the Boltzmann - Gibbs thermodynamical approach is insuffcient [1]. Instead particle spectra measured in high-energy collisions can be described very well with Tsallis -Pareto distributions, derived from non-extensive thermodynamics [2, 3]. Using the Tsallis q-entropy formula, a generalization of the Boltzmann - Gibbs entropy, we interpret the microscopic physics by analysing the Tsallis q and T parameters. In this paper we give a quick overview on these parameters, analyzing identified hadron spectra from recent years in a wide center-of-mass energy range. We demonstrate that the fitted Tsallis-parameters show dependency on the center-of-mass energy and particle species. Our findings are described well by a QCD inspired evolution ansatz. Based on this comprehensive study, apart from the evolution, both mesonic and barionic components found to be non-extensive (q > 1), beside the mass ordered hierarchy observed in parameter T.

Finding the plot in South African reading education

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Peter Rule

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This article argues that we have lost the plot in South African reading education. To find it, we need to move beyond the predominant mode of reading as oral performance, where the emphasis is on accuracy and pronunciation, to reading as comprehension of meaning in text. While reading research in South Africa has been conducted mainly in school contexts, this case study is of a school and Adult Basic Education and Training Centre in a rural KwaZulu-Natal community near Pietermaritzburg. It found that an oratorical approach to reading dominated in both settings. It suggests that developing the way in which teachers understand the teaching of reading and transforming the teaching practices of those who teach as they were taught in the education system of the apartheid era are key to improving the teaching of reading.

The Effectiveness of Three Reading Approaches and an Oral Language Stimulation Program with Disadvantaged Children in the Primary Grades: A Follow-Up Report After the Third Grade.

Science.gov (United States)

Dunn, Lloyd M.; Bruininks, Robert H.

The Cooperative Reading Project was a 2-year study designed to test the effectiveness of three initial reading approaches and an oral language stimulation program with inner-city Southern disadvantaged children. This followup study looked for differences among the treatment groups after pupils had completed their third school year. The 354…

Regulatory Approach To and Lessons Learned with Licensing of Service Life Extension at PAKS NPP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petofi, G.

2012-01-01

Paks Nuclear Power Plant of Hungary decided to extend the original design lifetime of the plant by 20 years, which expires on December 31, 2012 concerning unit 1. The Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority established the legal environments in order to license the extension using an approach similar to that followed in the United States. The regulation specifies the pre-conditions for the extension, defines the scoping and screening process for the passive and long lived systems, structures and components to be involved in the licensing and the respective methods of treatment and also determines how the active components shall be dealt with during the extended lifetime. The regulatory procedure is a two-step process including the oversight of the preparatory programme of the operator for the extension that started 4 years before the expiry of the lifetime and the licensing process itself, which is currently under way for unit 1 after the submittal of the licensee's application at the end of 2011. The first experiences with the regulatory assessment of the application are available yet and presented in this paper. (author)

Twenty-First Century Instructional Classroom Practices and Reading Motivation: Probing the Effectiveness of Interventional Reading Programs

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Taoufik Boulhrir

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Twenty-first century education has undoubtedly witnessed changes of the definition of literacy to cope with the economic, social, and intellectual trends. Technological advances, which include skills of communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration have become key in education, especially when dealing with literacy and reading motivation. As motivation hinges around two major theoretical approaches, intrinsic and extrinsic, numerous studies argue for the first to be more sustainable in enhancing reading motivation. Accordingly, many research-based interventional programs have emerged since the late nineties with increasing popularity to offer answers to the dwindling rates in reading among youth. This article discusses traits of 21st century education in light of trends and challenges as it probes the effectiveness of some interventional programs that are meant, and argued for, to enhance literacy skills and reading motivation.

Reading and reading instruction for children from low-income and non-English-speaking households.

Science.gov (United States)

Lesaux, Nonie K

2012-01-01

Although most young children seem to master reading skills in the early grades of elementary school, many struggle with texts as they move through middle school and high school. Why do children who seem to be proficient readers in third grade have trouble comprehending texts in later grades? To answer this question, Nonie Lesaux describes what is known about reading development and instruction, homing in on research conducted with children from low-income and non-English-speaking homes. Using key insights from this research base, she offers two explanations. The first is that reading is a dynamic and multifaceted process that requires continued development if students are to keep pace with the increasing demands of school texts and tasks. The second lies in the role of reading assessment and instruction in U.S. schools. Lesaux draws a distinction between the "skills-based competencies" that readers need to sound out and recognize words and the "knowledge-based competencies" that include the conceptual and vocabulary knowledge necessary to comprehend a text's meaning. Although U.S. schools have made considerable progress in teaching skills-based reading competencies that are the focus of the early grades, most have made much less progress in teaching the knowledge-based competencies students need to support reading comprehension in middle and high school. These knowledge-based competencies are key sources of lasting individual differences in reading outcomes, particularly among children growing up in low-income and non-English-speaking households. Augmenting literacy rates, Lesaux explains, will require considerable shifts in the way reading is assessed and taught in elementary and secondary schools. First, schools must conduct comprehensive reading assessments that discern learners' (potential) sources of reading difficulties--in both skills-based and knowledge-based competencies. Second, educators must implement instructional approaches that offer promise for

Developmental, Component-Based Model of Reading Fluency: An Investigation of Predictors of Word-Reading Fluency, Text-Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension

OpenAIRE

Kim, Young-Suk Grace

2015-01-01

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity)—how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word reading fluency and reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word reading fluency and reading comprehension. We examined (1) developmentally changing relations among word reading fluency, listening comprehension, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension; (2) the relation of reading comprehension to text readi...

Tampa Bay Extension Agents’ Views of Urban Extension: Philosophy and Program Strategies

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Amy Harder

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this article was to explore the concept of urban Extension as perceived by Extension agents within the Tampa Bay area, one of Florida’s fastest growing metropolitan areas. From a theoretical perspective, it is critical to understand Extension agents’ beliefs about urban Extension because behaviors are directly related to attitudes (Ajzen, 2012. In 2016, a qualitative investigation was undertaken to explore the perspectives of 23 agents working within the Tampa Bay area. Results showed the majority of agents believed that context and client needs are unique for urban Extension, and that to a lesser extent, unique agent expertise is required. Further, these beliefs impacted how agents reported their approach to programming, with an emphasis on providing convenience and seeking partnerships. Difficulties were identified related to identifying the role of Extension in a resource-rich environment of service providers, which contributed to the existence of a perceived disconnect between urban audiences and Extension. Opportunities exist for Extension leadership to provide strategic organizational support that will enhance agents’ abilities to succeed in the metropolitan environment.

Reading Psalm 23 In African Context

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David T. Adamo

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The book of Psalms is the best known, most discussed and most cited book of the Old Testament. Psalm 23 especially is the most loved book of the Psalms. That must have been the reason why it was named ‘an American icon’ and the ‘nightingale of the Psalms’. Two major ways of reading this Psalm are: as a shepherd to a sheep and as God to a human. The author of this article reads Psalms 23 Africentrically, that is, as God to a human. This means that Psalms 23 is read for the purpose of protection, provision, healing and success in all aspects of life, which are the main concerns of African people. It means reading Psalm 23 existentially with African life interest. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article is concerned with biblical studies, African Traditional Religion and culture and African Biblical Hermeneutics. It seeks to challenge the traditional Eurocentric approaches for its methodological approaches that do not make biblical studies adequately relevant to African Christianity. The book of Psalms is used as a perfect example of how it can be interpreted relevantly in Africa. Further implication is that there will be reduction of the Bible and Christianity looking like a foreign book and religion.

Self and External Monitoring of Reading Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Shiu, Ling-po; Chen, Qishan

2013-01-01

The present study compared the effectiveness of 2 approaches to remedy the inaccuracy of self-monitoring of reading comprehension. The first approach attempts to enhance self-monitoring by strengthening the cues utilized in monitoring. The second approach replaces self-monitoring with external regulation based on objective evaluative information.…

Developmental relations between reading comprehension and reading strategies

OpenAIRE

Muijselaar, M.M.L.; Swart, N.M.; Steenbeek-Planting, E.G.; Droop, W.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.; Jong, P.F. de

2017-01-01

We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory were administered. A structural equation model was constructed to estimate the unique relations between reading strategies and reading comprehension, while controlling for reading...

Information-optimal genome assembly via sparse read-overlap graphs.

Science.gov (United States)

Shomorony, Ilan; Kim, Samuel H; Courtade, Thomas A; Tse, David N C

2016-09-01

In the context of third-generation long-read sequencing technologies, read-overlap-based approaches are expected to play a central role in the assembly step. A fundamental challenge in assembling from a read-overlap graph is that the true sequence corresponds to a Hamiltonian path on the graph, and, under most formulations, the assembly problem becomes NP-hard, restricting practical approaches to heuristics. In this work, we avoid this seemingly fundamental barrier by first setting the computational complexity issue aside, and seeking an algorithm that targets information limits In particular, we consider a basic feasibility question: when does the set of reads contain enough information to allow unambiguous reconstruction of the true sequence? Based on insights from this information feasibility question, we present an algorithm-the Not-So-Greedy algorithm-to construct a sparse read-overlap graph. Unlike most other assembly algorithms, Not-So-Greedy comes with a performance guarantee: whenever information feasibility conditions are satisfied, the algorithm reduces the assembly problem to an Eulerian path problem on the resulting graph, and can thus be solved in linear time. In practice, this theoretical guarantee translates into assemblies of higher quality. Evaluations on both simulated reads from real genomes and a PacBio Escherichia coli K12 dataset demonstrate that Not-So-Greedy compares favorably with standard string graph approaches in terms of accuracy of the resulting read-overlap graph and contig N50. Available at github.com/samhykim/nsg courtade@eecs.berkeley.edu or dntse@stanford.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Effects of Phonological Training on the Reading and Reading-Related Abilities of Hong Kong Children with Dyslexia

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Li-Chih Wang

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to investigate phonological awareness training by examining outcomes among Chinese children who learn Chinese without phonetic system training. Fifty-six Hong Kong children from the 3rd to 6th grades were recruited. Two-thirds of the children had been officially identified as dyslexic by the local government, and the remainder were considered high risk for dyslexia. The children were divided equally into a control group and an experimental group, with the groups matched as closely as possible by age and gender. Children in the experimental group were trained by onset-rime-level phonological training. The training lasted ~3 weeks, with 15 daily sessions lasting ~20 min each. Our results indicated that children in the experimental group made significant improvements in Chinese character reading, onset awareness, rime awareness, and rapid naming after training. The association between phonological awareness and Chinese character reading, especially the association between rime awareness and Chinese character reading, also changed after training. The benefits of phonological awareness training were more obvious for children younger than 10 years old. The results of the present study can be extended to provide another approach to Chinese learning for children suffering from reading difficulties who are not responding to the usual approach in their region.

Effects of Reading Strategies and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge on Turkish EFL Learners' Text Inferencing Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Çakir, Abdulvahit; Ünaldi, Ihsan; Arslan, Fadime Yalçin; Kiliç, Mehmet

2016-01-01

Within the framework of foreign language teaching and learning, reading strategies, depth of vocabulary knowledge and text inferencing skills have not been researched extensively. This study tries to fill this gap by analyzing the effects of reading strategies used by Turkish EFL learners and their depth of vocabulary knowledge on their text…

Peer Tutoring in Reading: The Effects of Role and Organization on Two Dimensions of Self-Esteem

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, David; Topping, Keith; Thurston, Allen

2010-01-01

Background: Paired reading (PR) is an application of peer tutoring. It has been extensively researched, and its efficacy across a range of outcomes has been established. Benefits include improvements in key reading skills, and also in affective aspects of learning. Several studies have shown gains in self-esteem, although measurement methods have…

Teaching Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Day, Richard R.

2013-01-01

"Teaching Reading" uncovers the interactive processes that happen when people learn to read and translates them into a comprehensive easy-to-follow guide on how to teach reading. Richard Day's revelations on the nature of reading, reading strategies, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and reading objectives make fascinating…

Developing methodological awareness of reading, thinking and writing as knowledge producing practices

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Katan, Lina Hauge; Baarts, Charlotte

Developing methodological awareness among university students about reading, thinking and writing as knowledge producing practices Integrated acts of reading, thinking and writing comprise an extensive and extremely significant part of the learning processes through which we produce knowledge...... text books on method and classes too. As a consequence students have few chances of encountering the practices of reading, thinking and writing depicted as those imperative parts of knowledge making that we as researchers of the humanities and social sciences know them to be. Subsequently students...... are not taught to understand reading, thinking and writing as central practices of research nor do they come to develop methododological awareness about them as such. In this paper, we report from our endavour into designing and developing a course offered for under- and graduate students, with the aim...

Random Fuzzy Extension of the Universal Generating Function Approach for the Reliability Assessment of Multi-State Systems Under Aleatory and Epistemic Uncertainties

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Li, Yan-Fu; Ding, Yi; Zio, Enrico

2014-01-01

. In this work, we extend the traditional universal generating function (UGF) approach for multi-state system (MSS) availability and reliability assessment to account for both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. First, a theoretical extension, named hybrid UGF (HUGF), is made to introduce the use of random...... fuzzy variables (RFVs) in the approach. Second, the composition operator of HUGF is defined by considering simultaneously the probabilistic convolution and the fuzzy extension principle. Finally, an efficient algorithm is designed to extract probability boxes ($p$ -boxes) from the system HUGF, which...

"It Makes Me Really Want To Read": Struggling Readers Discover Literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Primeaux, Joan

2001-01-01

Presents a project where the teacher, rather than teaching the students how to read using a remedial, isolated skills approach, concerned herself with getting them to read by "falling into the literature" and getting involved in the characters' lives. Describes a reader response approach that was designed to motivate the students to engage with…

The XML approach to implementing space link extension service management

Science.gov (United States)

Tai, W.; Welz, G. A.; Theis, G.; Yamada, T.

2001-01-01

A feasibility study has been conducted at JPL, ESOC, and ISAS to assess the possible applications of the eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) capabilities to the implementation of the CCSDS Space Link Extension (SLE) Service Management function.

A New Approach to the Modeling and Analysis of Fracture through Extension of Continuum Mechanics to the Nanoscale

KAUST Repository

Sendova, T.; Walton, J. R.

2010-01-01

In this paper we focus on the analysis of the partial differential equations arising from a new approach to modeling brittle fracture based on an extension of continuum mechanics to the nanoscale. It is shown that ascribing constant surface tension

Reading for Pleasure: More than Just a Distant Possibility?

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Barber, Karen Slikas

2014-01-01

Much has been written about the importance of extensive reading for the development of language fluency, yet it is not often an activity of choice by students as a means of improving language learning. Many of my multi-level (elementary-intermediate) Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) Certificates in Spoken and Written English (CSWE) students…

Exploring Reading Comprehension Needs of Iranian EAP Students of Health Information Management (HIM): A Triangulated Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Atai, Mahmood Reza; Nazari, Ogholgol

2011-01-01

Discipline-based English for Academic Purposes (EAP) reading programs in Iran are designed to fill the gap between the students' general English reading competence and their ability to read authentic discipline-specific texts. This study attempted to assess target and present reading comprehension needs of EAP students of Health Information…

Reading comprehension and reading related abilities in adolescents with reading disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Ghelani, Karen; Sidhu, Robindra; Jain, Umesh; Tannock, Rosemary

2004-11-01

Reading comprehension is a very complex task that requires different cognitive processes and reading abilities over the life span. There are fewer studies of reading comprehension relative to investigations of word reading abilities. Reading comprehension difficulties, however, have been identified in two common and frequently overlapping childhood disorders: reading disability (RD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The nature of reading comprehension difficulties in these groups remains unclear. The performance of four groups of adolescents (RD, ADHD, comorbid ADHD and RD, and normal controls) was compared on reading comprehension tasks as well as on reading rate and accuracy tasks. Adolescents with RD showed difficulties across most reading tasks, although their comprehension scores were average. Adolescents with ADHD exhibited adequate single word reading abilities. Subtle difficulties were observed, however, on measures of text reading rate and accuracy as well as on silent reading comprehension, but scores remained in the average range. The comorbid group demonstrated similar difficulties to the RD group on word reading accuracy and on reading rate but experienced problems on only silent reading comprehension. Implications for reading interventions are outlined, as well as the clinical relevance for diagnosis.

The Explicit Instruction of Reading Strategies: Directed Reading Thinking Activity vs. Guided Reading Strategies

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Mohammad Mehdi Yazdani

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Investigating the efficiencies and deficiencies of reading strategies is one of the noticeable issues in the related theory and research in reading comprehension instruction. This study was to examine the impact of Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA and Guided Reading (GR on reading comprehension. Sixty three Iranian students of grade one in Shahed high school in the city of Bojnourd took part in the study. They were assigned in three groups, one control and two experimental groups. The instruction lasted for ten weeks. This study utilized a pretest posttest control group in quantitative quasi- experimental design. The same reading comprehension test was administered as pre-test and post-test. The results were twofold: First, the instruction of learning strategies could foster reading comprehension skill. Second, while the explicit instruction of both strategies could improve the students' reading comprehension skill, Directed Reading Thinking Activity had a more significant positive effect than Guided Reading.

Cycling as Reading a Cityscape: A Phenomenological Approach to ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The reading of the cityscape enabled by the combination of two interfaces, the bicycle and the ride simulator, is discussed in relation to de Certeau's account of pedestrian (walking) experience in a big city, his distinction between strategies and tactics, and the notion that each cyclist contributes a novel story to ridetext, which ...

Small Farmers' Habits of Reading Agricultural Extension Publications: The Case of Moshav Farmers in Israel.

Science.gov (United States)

Blum, Abraham; Azencot, Moshe

1989-01-01

Interviews farmers in Moshavim, Israel, to examine the need for efficient written communication channels between agricultural extension services and small farmers. Identifies the main problems as a weak distribution system and the necessity for authors of extension pamphlets and brochures to consider the special needs of small farmers. (KEH)

The Impact of Language Experience on Language and Reading: A Statistical Learning Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Seidenberg, Mark S.; MacDonald, Maryellen C.

2018-01-01

This article reviews the important role of statistical learning for language and reading development. Although statistical learning--the unconscious encoding of patterns in language input--has become widely known as a force in infants' early interpretation of speech, the role of this kind of learning for language and reading comprehension in…

Lexical Density Of English Reading Texts For Senior High School

OpenAIRE

Nesia, Bersyebah Herljimsi; Ginting, Siti Aisah

2014-01-01

This study deals with the lexical density especially the lexical items of English reading texts in the textbook for senior high school. The objectives of the study are to find out the lexical density especially the lexical items which formed in the reading texts of Look Ahead textbook and the type of genre which has the highest lexical density of the reading texts. This study was conducted by descriptive method with qualitative approach. The data of this research were the English reading text...

A sensitive short read homology search tool for paired-end read sequencing data.

Science.gov (United States)

Techa-Angkoon, Prapaporn; Sun, Yanni; Lei, Jikai

2017-10-16

Homology search is still a significant step in functional analysis for genomic data. Profile Hidden Markov Model-based homology search has been widely used in protein domain analysis in many different species. In particular, with the fast accumulation of transcriptomic data of non-model species and metagenomic data, profile homology search is widely adopted in integrated pipelines for functional analysis. While the state-of-the-art tool HMMER has achieved high sensitivity and accuracy in domain annotation, the sensitivity of HMMER on short reads declines rapidly. The low sensitivity on short read homology search can lead to inaccurate domain composition and abundance computation. Our experimental results showed that half of the reads were missed by HMMER for a RNA-Seq dataset. Thus, there is a need for better methods to improve the homology search performance for short reads. We introduce a profile homology search tool named Short-Pair that is designed for short paired-end reads. By using an approximate Bayesian approach employing distribution of fragment lengths and alignment scores, Short-Pair can retrieve the missing end and determine true domains. In particular, Short-Pair increases the accuracy in aligning short reads that are part of remote homologs. We applied Short-Pair to a RNA-Seq dataset and a metagenomic dataset and quantified its sensitivity and accuracy on homology search. The experimental results show that Short-Pair can achieve better overall performance than the state-of-the-art methodology of profile homology search. Short-Pair is best used for next-generation sequencing (NGS) data that lack reference genomes. It provides a complementary paired-end read homology search tool to HMMER. The source code is freely available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/short-pair/ .

PROVIDING ENGLISH LANGUAGE INPUT: DECREASING STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN READING COMPREHENSION PERFORMANCE

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Elva Yohana

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The primary condition for successful in second or foreign language learning is providing an adequate environment. It is as a medium of increasing the students’ language exposure in order to be able to success in acquiring second or foreign language profciency. This study was designed to propose the adequate English language input that can decrease the students’ anxiety in reading comprehension performance. Of the four skills, somehow reading can be regarded as especially important because reading is assumed to be the central means for learning new information. Some students, however, still encounter many problems in reading. It is because of their anxiety when they are reading. Providing and creating an interesting-contextual reading material and gratifed teachers can make out this problem which occurs mostly in Indonesian’s classrooms. It revealed that the younger learners of English there do not received adequate amount of the target language input in their learning of English. Hence, it suggested the adoption of extensive reading programs as the most effective means in the creation of an input-rich environment in EFL learning contexts. Besides they also give suggestion to book writers and publisher to provide myriad books that appropriate and readable for their students.

Reading in Colette: Domination, Resistance, Autonomy

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Laurel Cummins

1996-06-01

Full Text Available The act of reading on the part of Colette's characters reveals itself as a dynamic involving domination and resistance. A study of passages from two of her semi-autobiographical works, La Maison de Claudine and Sido , brings to light both a positively connoted model of reading, exemplified by the character 'Colette,' and a negatively connoted model, exemplified by the older sister Juliette. While Juliette approaches texts with no sense of self, and seeks instead to be defined by the texts she reads, 'Colette' remains in relation to texts and to the discourses they contain, and resists them. Gender complicates the process. Both father and mother intervene in 'Colette's' apprenticeship as reader. While the censorship that constitutes the father's intervention proves both debilitating and disempowering, the mother's modeling of reading as dialogue and resistance empowers 'Colette,' both as a reader and a female being.

"Show-Me Bedtime Reading'" An Unusual Study of the Benefits of Reading to Deaf Children.

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Rogers, Deborah

1989-01-01

Nine primary-age children at a residential school for the deaf were read bedtime stories using a Total Communication approach. Every child subsequently demonstrated growth on each of several language assessments, including language comprehension and expressive language. (JDD)

Developmental Relations Between Reading Comprehension and Reading Strategies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Muijselaar, M.; Swart, N.M.; Steenbeek-Planting, E.G,.; Droop, M.; Verhoeven, L.; de Jong, P.F.

2017-01-01

We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary,

Towards a universal model of reading.

Science.gov (United States)

Frost, Ram

2012-10-01

In the last decade, reading research has seen a paradigmatic shift. A new wave of computational models of orthographic processing that offer various forms of noisy position or context-sensitive coding have revolutionized the field of visual word recognition. The influx of such models stems mainly from consistent findings, coming mostly from European languages, regarding an apparent insensitivity of skilled readers to letter order. Underlying the current revolution is the theoretical assumption that the insensitivity of readers to letter order reflects the special way in which the human brain encodes the position of letters in printed words. The present article discusses the theoretical shortcomings and misconceptions of this approach to visual word recognition. A systematic review of data obtained from a variety of languages demonstrates that letter-order insensitivity is neither a general property of the cognitive system nor a property of the brain in encoding letters. Rather, it is a variant and idiosyncratic characteristic of some languages, mostly European, reflecting a strategy of optimizing encoding resources, given the specific structure of words. Since the main goal of reading research is to develop theories that describe the fundamental and invariant phenomena of reading across orthographies, an alternative approach to model visual word recognition is offered. The dimensions of a possible universal model of reading, which outlines the common cognitive operations involved in orthographic processing in all writing systems, are discussed.

SMART STRATEGY TO BOOST STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION

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Muhammad Lukman Syafi’i

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Reading as one of language skills plays significant roles in the teaching English as a foreign language. Since the teacher still uses the conventional way to teach reading, students‘ ability in reading comprehension seems still unsatisfactory yet. So, teacher should explore and develop new strategies. One of strategies in reading comprehension that can trigger our students to attain that purpose is SMART (Self Monitoring Approach for Reading and Thinking strategy. This study is developing SMART strategy to boost the reading comprehension achievement of the ninth grade students. The research applies a collaborative classroom action research design in which the researcher and the collaborative teacher work together in preparing a suitable procedure of SMART strategy, designing the lesson plan, determining the criteria of success, implementing the action, observing, and doing reflection. The finding indicated that SMART strategy was successful to enhance students‘ motivation to be actively involved in the instructional process. The improvement on the students‘ participation was 75% in Cycle 1 and 87% in Cycle 2.

The promotion of reading in Education Framework

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Maite Monar van Vliet

2012-11-01

Full Text Available The research implants a theoretical-practical vision of reading promotion at the educative field. On one hand, they show us the state of the issue focusing on the legislative field, the research and promotion of virtual reading and, concretely, in the País Valenciano case, a practical research location. A panoramic from the nowadays legislation is established parting from the UNESCO. The LOE and the reading plans. Specialists’ different studies enrich the vision and virtual platforms complete the established theoretical description. On the other hand, a qualitative field work is done with the objective of evaluating the benefits of webs, blogs and wikis in the classroom for reading promotion during the school year 2010-2011 with three groups in three different centres. The work consists of watching the digital platforms application for the reading promotion in the classroom and analysing its usefulness through some cases studies, a discussion group and the triangulation. The research concludes with some reflections which invite the reader to approach to the reading promotion at the educational field of virtual technology.

The Relative Predictive Contribution and Causal Role of Phoneme Awareness, Rhyme Awareness, and Verbal Short-Term Memory in Reading Skills: A Review

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Melby-Lervag, Monica

2012-01-01

The acknowledgement that educational achievement is highly dependent on successful reading development has led to extensive research on its underlying factors. A strong argument has been made for a causal relationship between reading and phoneme awareness; similarly, causal relations have been suggested for reading with short-term memory and rhyme…

Forecasting Reading Anxiety for Promoting English-Language Reading Performance Based on Reading Annotation Behavior

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Chen, Chih-Ming; Wang, Jung-Ying; Chen, Yong-Ting; Wu, Jhih-Hao

2016-01-01

To reduce effectively the reading anxiety of learners while reading English articles, a C4.5 decision tree, a widely used data mining technique, was used to develop a personalized reading anxiety prediction model (PRAPM) based on individual learners' reading annotation behavior in a collaborative digital reading annotation system (CDRAS). In…

Development of a Reading Material Recommendation System Based on a Knowledge Engineering Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Hsu, Ching-Kun; Hwang, Gwo-Jen; Chang, Chih-Kai

2010-01-01

In a language curriculum, the training of reading ability is one of the most important aspects. Previous studies have shown the importance of assigning proper articles to individual students for training their reading ability; nevertheless, previous experience has also shown the challenges of this issue owing to the complexity of personal factors…

Electronic Storybooks: A Constructivist Approach to Improving Reading Motivation in Grade 1 Students

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Ciampa, Katia

2012-01-01

This study stemmed from a concern of the perceived decline in students' reading motivation after the early years of schooling. This research investigated the effectiveness of online eBooks on eight grade 1 students' reading motivation. Eight students were given ten 25-minute sessions with the software programs over 15 weeks. Qualitative data were…

Troubled reading: ‘Sonny’s blues’ and empathy

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Eva Kowalska

2015-07-01

Full Text Available This article uses a discussion of Baldwin’s short story ‘Sonny’s blues’ as a means of exploring reading and approaches to drug literature. It considers the possibility of understanding Baldwin’s fictional text as a statement on reading social as well as subjective ‘problems’ as universal across contexts. Using conclusions gleaned from a detailed reading of the primary text, as well as the contributions of others to the field, it argues for the importance of reading, as audience and as scholars, with the capacity to allow for the transformation of problematic subjective experience such as drug addiction into artistic expression with value beyond its initial context.

An efficient and extensible approach for compressing phylogenetic trees.

Science.gov (United States)

Matthews, Suzanne J; Williams, Tiffani L

2011-10-18

Biologists require new algorithms to efficiently compress and store their large collections of phylogenetic trees. Our previous work showed that TreeZip is a promising approach for compressing phylogenetic trees. In this paper, we extend our TreeZip algorithm by handling trees with weighted branches. Furthermore, by using the compressed TreeZip file as input, we have designed an extensible decompressor that can extract subcollections of trees, compute majority and strict consensus trees, and merge tree collections using set operations such as union, intersection, and set difference. On unweighted phylogenetic trees, TreeZip is able to compress Newick files in excess of 98%. On weighted phylogenetic trees, TreeZip is able to compress a Newick file by at least 73%. TreeZip can be combined with 7zip with little overhead, allowing space savings in excess of 99% (unweighted) and 92%(weighted). Unlike TreeZip, 7zip is not immune to branch rotations, and performs worse as the level of variability in the Newick string representation increases. Finally, since the TreeZip compressed text (TRZ) file contains all the semantic information in a collection of trees, we can easily filter and decompress a subset of trees of interest (such as the set of unique trees), or build the resulting consensus tree in a matter of seconds. We also show the ease of which set operations can be performed on TRZ files, at speeds quicker than those performed on Newick or 7zip compressed Newick files, and without loss of space savings. TreeZip is an efficient approach for compressing large collections of phylogenetic trees. The semantic and compact nature of the TRZ file allow it to be operated upon directly and quickly, without a need to decompress the original Newick file. We believe that TreeZip will be vital for compressing and archiving trees in the biological community.

Child-centered reading intervention: See, talk, dictate, read, write!

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Muhammet BAŞTUĞ

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Poor reading achievement of children in elementary schools has been one of the major concerns in education. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a child-centered reading intervention in eliminating the reading problems of a student with poor reading achievement. The research was conducted with a student having difficulty in reading. A reading intervention was designed that targeted multiple areas of reading and aimed to improve reading skills through the use of multiple strategies. This intervention is child-centered and includes visual aids, talking, dictating, reading and writing stages. The study was performed in 35 sessions consisting of stages of a single sentence (5 sessions, two sentences (5 sessions, three sentences (20 sessions and the text stage (5 sessions. The intervention sessions were audio-taped. These recordings and the written responses to the reading comprehension questions provided the data for analysis. The findings on the reading intervention revealed positive outcomes. The student exhibited certain improvements at the levels of reading, reading rate and reading comprehension. These results were discussed in the literature and the findings suggest that child-centered reading strategies such as talking, dictating and writing should be the main focus of instruction for students with low reading literacy achievement to enable these students to meet the demands of the curriculum.

Reading Test-taking Strategies in General Training IELTS

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Vahede Nosrati

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The significance of gaining a better understanding of how test-taking strategies are used has been recognized by researchers. Considering this fact, this study aimed at investigating the test-taking strategies which were employed by IELTS candidates in reading comprehension test. Besides, it tried to take into account the differences among strategies used for different tasks. In order to gather data, two instruments were employed: the think-aloud protocol, and an IELTS reading test. The obtained data were analyzed and interpreted qualitatively by the researcher. The findings indicated that candidates employed 15 different strategies which were categorized in 3 stages, pre-reading, reading, and post-reading stages. Furthermore, it was revealed that test-takers used certain strategies differently, depending on the type of the task. The findings provide a better understanding of strategy use among IELTS candidates and help teachers to improve their approaches toward teaching and learning goals. Keywords: Test-taking Strategy, Test-taker, Reading Comprehension, Language Learning Strategy, IELTS

A service life extension (SLEP) approach to operating aging aircraft beyond their original design lives

Science.gov (United States)

Pentz, Alan Carter

With today's uncertain funding climate (including sequestration and continuing budget resolutions), decision makers face severe budgetary challenges to maintain dominance through all aspects of the Department of Defense (DoD). To meet war-fighting capabilities, the DoD continues to extend aircraft programs beyond their design service lives by up to ten years, and occasionally much more. The budget requires a new approach to traditional extension strategies (i.e., reuse, reset, and reclamation) for structural hardware. While extending service life without careful controls can present a safety concern, future operations planning does not consider how much risk is present when operating within sound structural principles. Traditional structural hardware extension methods drive increased costs. Decision makers often overlook the inherent damage tolerance and fatigue capability of structural components and rely on simple time- and flight-based cycle accumulation when determining aircraft retirement lives. This study demonstrates that decision makers should consider risk in addition to the current extension strategies. Through an evaluation of eight military aircraft programs and the application and simulation of F-18 turbine engine usage data, this dissertation shows that insight into actual aircraft mission data, consideration of fatigue capability, and service extension length are key factors to consider. Aircraft structural components, as well as many critical safety components and system designs, have a predefined level of conservatism and inherent damage tolerance. The methods applied in this study would apply to extensions of other critical structures such as bridges. Understanding how much damage tolerance is built into the design compared to the original design usage requirements presents the opportunity to manage systems based on risk. The study presents the sensitivity of these factors and recommends avenues for further research.

Boosting orthographic learning during independent reading

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Anne-Mette Veber

2016-01-01

. The present training study was conducted to assess experimentally whether this relation between prior orthographic knowledge and orthographic learning while reading is causal by assessing whether instruction designed to increase sublexical orthographic knowledge would facilitate orthographic learning during......Research has shown that phonological decoding is critical for orthographic learning of new words during independent reading. Moreover, correlational studies have demonstrated that the strength of orthographic learning is related to the orthographic knowledge with which readers approach a text...... independent reading. A group of Danish-speaking third graders (n = 21) was taught conditional spelling patterns conforming to the opaque Danish writing system, with emphasis on how to map the spellings onto their pronunciations. A matched control group (n = 21) received no treatment. Both groups were exposed...

Novel approach for efficient predictions properties of large pool of nanomaterials based on limited set of species: nano-read-across

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gajewicz, Agnieszka; Puzyn, Tomasz; Cronin, Mark T.D; Rasulev, Bakhtiyor; Leszczynski, Jerzy

2015-01-01

Creating suitable chemical categories and developing read-across methods, supported by quantum mechanical calculations, can be an effective solution to solving key problems related to current scarcity of data on the toxicity of various nanoparticles. This study has demonstrated that by applying a nano-read-across, the cytotoxicity of nano-sized metal oxides could be estimated with a similar level of accuracy as provided by quantitative structure-activity relationship for nanomaterials (nano-QSAR model(s)). The method presented is a suitable computational tool for the preliminary hazard assessment of nanomaterials. It also could be used for the identification of nanomaterials that may pose potential negative impact to human health and the environment. Such approaches are especially necessary when there is paucity of relevant and reliable data points to develop and validate nano-QSAR models. (paper)

Systematic Analysis of the Non-Extensive Statistical Approach in High Energy Particle Collisions—Experiment vs. Theory †

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Gábor Bíró

2017-02-01

Full Text Available The analysis of high-energy particle collisions is an excellent testbed for the non-extensive statistical approach. In these reactions we are far from the thermodynamical limit. In small colliding systems, such as electron-positron or nuclear collisions, the number of particles is several orders of magnitude smaller than the Avogadro number; therefore, finite-size and fluctuation effects strongly influence the final-state one-particle energy distributions. Due to the simple characterization, the description of the identified hadron spectra with the Boltzmann–Gibbs thermodynamical approach is insufficient. These spectra can be described very well with Tsallis–Pareto distributions instead, derived from non-extensive thermodynamics. Using the q-entropy formula, we interpret the microscopic physics in terms of the Tsallis q and T parameters. In this paper we give a view on these parameters, analyzing identified hadron spectra from recent years in a wide center-of-mass energy range. We demonstrate that the fitted Tsallis-parameters show dependency on the center-of-mass energy and particle species (mass. Our findings are described well by a QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics inspired parton evolution ansatz. Based on this comprehensive study, apart from the evolution, both mesonic and baryonic components found to be non-extensive ( q > 1 , besides the mass ordered hierarchy observed in the parameter T. We also study and compare in details the theory-obtained parameters for the case of PYTHIA8 Monte Carlo Generator, perturbative QCD and quark coalescence models.

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH IINTERACTIVE READ-ALOUD TECHNIQUE

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Edi Santoso

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract: The present study, entitled Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension through Interactive Read-Aloud, attempts to unlock problems found in teaching and reading comprehension through interactive read-aloud in a Senior High School of Sport (SMAN Olah Raga Lampung, in Metro. The findings revealed that students’ reading comprehension improved through interactive read-aloud. The improvement can be seen from the increase of test results, meaning construction, and motivation. The process of reading activities showed that the teacher’s gesture and body language, 20 questions, explain and guess activities were proven to help the students construct meaning from the given texts. In addition, interactive read-aloud is effective to boost students’ motivation to comprehend the texts.   Key words: Reading comprehension, interactive read-aloud.

Mindful Reading: Mindfulness meditation helps keep readers with dyslexia or ADHD on the lexical track

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ricardo eTarrasch

2016-05-01

Full Text Available This study explored the effects of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction(MBSR intervention on reading, attention, and psychological wellbeing among people with developmental-dyslexia and/or attention-deficits. Various types of dyslexia exist, characterized by different error types. We examined a question that has not been tested so far: which types of errors(and dyslexias are affected by MBSR training.To do so,we tested,using an extensive battery of reading tests, whether each participant had dyslexia,and which errors types s/he makes,and then compared the rate of each error type before and after the MBSR workshop.We used a similar approach to attention disorders: we evaluated the participants' sustained, selective, executive, and orienting of attention to assess whether they had attention-disorders,and if so,which functions were impaired.We then evaluated the effect of MBSR on each of the attention-functions.Psychological measures including mindfulness,stress, reflection and rumination, life-satisfaction,depression,anxiety,and sleep-disturbances were also evaluated. Nineteen Hebrew-readers completed a two-month mindfulness workshop. The results showed that whereas reading errors of letter-migrations within and between words and vowel-letter errors did not decrease following the workshop,most participants made fewer reading errors in general following the workshop, with a significant reduction of 19% from their original number of errors. This decrease mainly resulted from a decrease in errors that occur due to reading via the sublexical- rather than the lexical-route. It seems,therefore,that mindfulness helped reading by keeping the readers on the lexical route.This improvement in reading probably resulted from improved sustained attention: the reduction in sublexical reading was significant for the dyslexic participants who also had attentional deficits,and there were significant correlations between reduced reading errors and decreases in

Reading faster

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Paul Nation

2009-12-01

Full Text Available This article describes the visual nature of the reading process as it relates to reading speed. It points out that there is a physical limit on normal reading speed and beyond this limit the reading process will be different from normal reading where almost every word is attended to. The article describes a range of activities for developing reading fluency, and suggests how the development of fluency can become part of a reading programme.

The reading teacher as a trainer of citizens

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Jennie Brand Barajas

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The present is a qualitative study by theorizing, from the approach of the problem of reading as a basic resource for the formation of citizens through education. It starts from the definition of the reading capacity, followed by the revision of the general characteristics of the reading brain proposed by Stalisnas Dehaene (2014, as well as the revolutions in the materials and devices used for the writing, besides the changes in the form of reading, from Sumerian tablets to digital technologies. The process of Education for Development and the distinctive features of digital citizenship are presented, which are: immediacy in the production, transmission and reception of messages; interactivity between receiver and producer; the multi-authoritarian, which gives birth to “the prosumers”; the accessibility of the environment; freedom of expression; the democratization of access and the appropriation of a public space. All this allows contextualizing new forms of reading and new profiles of readers, as well as the generation of virtual reading spaces where communities of dialogue and exchange are formed. The study reaches the teachers and their reading biographies, which largely define their competence to encourage reading among their students and their ability to mobilize them towards citizen responsibility through reading.

Socio-cultural context, child development and beginning reading in Peru

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Cecilia Thorne

2005-06-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on the fact that many children in Peru are not able to read fluently when they finish elementary school. To analyze this shortcoming it presents an overview of the Peruvian context, the education system, the multilingual and the socio-cultural background and identifies the difficult conditions in which Peruvian children grow and its consequences in child development and beginning reading. The paper discusses different aspectsof developmental psychology and puts the accent on Bronfenbrenner's theory and the developmental approach to education. It offers, also, a review of several studies on reading in Peru. Finally it emphasizes the advantages of incorporating the ecological theory and the developmental approach to education

Shared Reading to Build Vocabulary and Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Kesler, Ted

2010-01-01

The author presents four approaches to shared reading that he used with first through third graders in a high-needs, urban elementary school with a large population of students from immigrant homes. Using sociocultural and cognitive constructivist principles, the author shows how these approaches built students' academic vocabulary and…

Promoting preschool reading

OpenAIRE

Istenič, Vesna

2013-01-01

The thesis titled Promoting preschool reading consists of a theoretiral and an empirical part. In the theoretical part I wrote about reading, the importance of reading, types of reading, about reading motivation, promoting reading motivation, internal and external motivation, influence of reading motivation on the child's reading activity, reading and familial literacy, the role of adults in promotion reading literacy, reading to a child and promoting reading in pre-school years, where I ...

Meraculous: De Novo Genome Assembly with Short Paired-End Reads

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chapman, Jarrod A.; Ho, Isaac; Sunkara, Sirisha; Luo, Shujun; Schroth, Gary P.; Rokhsar, Daniel S.; Salzberg, Steven L.

2011-08-18

We describe a new algorithm, meraculous, for whole genome assembly of deep paired-end short reads, and apply it to the assembly of a dataset of paired 75-bp Illumina reads derived from the 15.4 megabase genome of the haploid yeast Pichia stipitis. More than 95% of the genome is recovered, with no errors; half the assembled sequence is in contigs longer than 101 kilobases and in scaffolds longer than 269 kilobases. Incorporating fosmid ends recovers entire chromosomes. Meraculous relies on an efficient and conservative traversal of the subgraph of the k-mer (deBruijn) graph of oligonucleotides with unique high quality extensions in the dataset, avoiding an explicit error correction step as used in other short-read assemblers. A novel memory-efficient hashing scheme is introduced. The resulting contigs are ordered and oriented using paired reads separated by ~280 bp or ~3.2 kbp, and many gaps between contigs can be closed using paired-end placements. Practical issues with the dataset are described, and prospects for assembling larger genomes are discussed.

A research on comprehension differences between print and screen reading

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Szu-Yuan Sun

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Since the 1980s, extensive research has been conducted comparing reading comprehension from printed text and computer screens. The conclusions, however, are not very consistent. As reading from computer screens requires a certain degree of individual technical skill, such variables should be objectively taken into consideration when conducting an experiment regarding the comparison between print and screen reading. This study analyses the difference in the level of understanding of the two presentational formats (text on printed pages and hypertext on computer screens for people between 45-54 years of age (i.e. “middleaged” adults. In our experimental findings there were no significant differences between the levels of comprehension for print and screen presentations. With regard to individual differences in gender, age group and educational level, the findings are as follows: gender and education effects on print reading comprehension performance were significant, while those on screen reading comprehension performance were not. For middle-aged computer learners, the main effect of age group on both print and screen reading comprehension performance was insignificant. In contrast, linear texts of traditional paper-based material are better for middle-aged readers’ literal text comprehension, while hypertext is beneficial to their inferential text comprehension. It is also suggested that hypermedia could be used as a cognitive tool for improving middle-aged adults’ inferential abilities on reading comprehension, provided that they were trained adequately to use available computers.

Neurally dissociable cognitive components of reading deficits in subacute stroke.

Science.gov (United States)

Boukrina, Olga; Barrett, A M; Alexander, Edward J; Yao, Bing; Graves, William W

2015-01-01

According to cognitive models of reading, words are processed by interacting orthographic (spelling), phonological (sound), and semantic (meaning) information. Despite extensive study of the neural basis of reading in healthy participants, little group data exist on patients with reading deficits from focal brain damage pointing to critical neural systems for reading. Here, we report on one such study. We have performed neuropsychological testing and magnetic resonance imaging on 11 patients with left-hemisphere stroke (picture or word choices to a target based on meaning), phonology (matching word choices to a target based on rhyming), and orthography (a two-alternative forced choice of the most plausible non-word). They also read aloud pseudowords and words with high or low levels of usage frequency, imageability, and spelling-sound consistency. As predicted by the cognitive model, when averaged across patients, the influence of semantics was most salient for low-frequency, low-consistency words, when phonological decoding is especially difficult. Qualitative subtraction analyses revealed lesion sites specific to phonological processing. These areas were consistent with those shown previously to activate for phonology in healthy participants, including supramarginal, posterior superior temporal, middle temporal, inferior frontal gyri, and underlying white matter. Notable divergence between this analysis and previous functional imaging is the association of lesions in the mid-fusiform gyrus and anterior temporal lobe with phonological reading deficits. This study represents progress toward identifying brain lesion-deficit relationships in the cognitive components of reading. Such correspondences are expected to help not only better understand the neural mechanisms of reading, but may also help tailor reading therapy to individual neurocognitive deficit profiles.

Sight-Reading Requirements at Concert Band Festivals: A National Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Paul, Timothy A.

2010-01-01

This study, a replication and extension of work by Norris (2004), examined sight-reading requirements at middle and high school large-group band festivals across the United States. As in the earlier investigation, answers to the following questions were solicited from all 50 states: (1) Are there ratings-based large-group band festivals? (2) Is…

Neurally-dissociable cognitive components of reading deficits in subacute stroke

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga eBoukrina

2015-05-01

Full Text Available According to cognitive models of reading, words are processed by interacting orthographic (spelling, phonological (sound and semantic (meaning information. Despite extensive study of the neural basis of reading in healthy participants, little group data exist on patients with reading deficits from focal brain damage pointing to critical neural systems for reading. Here we report on one such study. We have performed neuropsychological testing and MRI on 11 patients with left-hemisphere stroke (<= 5 weeks post stroke. Patients completed tasks assessing cognitive components of reading such as semantics (matching picture or word choices to a target based on meaning, phonology (matching word choices to a target based on rhyming, and orthography (a two-alternative forced choice of the most plausible nonword. They also read aloud pseudowords and words with high or low levels of usage frequency, imageability, and spelling-sound consistency. As predicted by the cognitive model, when averaged across patients, the influence of semantics was most salient for low-frequency, low-consistency words, when phonological decoding is especially difficult. Qualitative subtraction analyses revealed lesion sites specific to phonological processing. These areas were consistent with those shown previously to activate for phonology in healthy participants, including supramarginal, posterior superior temporal, middle temporal, inferior frontal gyri, and underlying white matter. Notable divergence between this analysis and previous functional imaging is the association of lesions in the mid-fusiform gyrus and anterior temporal lobe with phonological reading deficits. This study represents progress toward identifying brain lesion-deficit relationships in the cognitive components of reading. Such correspondences are expected to help not only better understand the neural mechanisms of reading, but may also help tailor reading therapy to individual neurocognitive deficit

Genetic and Environmental Etiologies of Reading Difficulties: DeFries-Fulker Analysis of Reading Performance Data from Twin Pairs and Their Non-Twin Siblings

Science.gov (United States)

Astrom, Raven L.; Wadsworth, Sally J.; Olson, Richard K.; Willcutt, Erik G.; DeFries, John C.

2012-01-01

Reading performance data from 254 pairs of identical (MZ) and 420 pairs of fraternal (DZ) twins, 8.0 to 20.0 years of age, were subjected to multiple regression analyses. An extension of the DeFries-Fulker (DF) analysis (DeFries & Fulker, 1985, 1988) that facilitated inclusion of data from 303 of their nontwin siblings was employed. In addition to…

Mindful Reading: Mindfulness Meditation Helps Keep Readers with Dyslexia and ADHD on the Lexical Track

Science.gov (United States)

Tarrasch, Ricardo; Berman, Zohar; Friedmann, Naama

2016-01-01

This study explored the effects of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) intervention on reading, attention, and psychological well-being among people with developmental dyslexia and/or attention deficits. Various types of dyslexia exist, characterized by different error types. We examined a question that has not been tested so far: which types of errors (and dyslexias) are affected by MBSR training. To do so, we tested, using an extensive battery of reading tests, whether each participant had dyslexia, and which errors types s/he makes, and then compared the rate of each error type before and after the MBSR workshop. We used a similar approach to attention disorders: we evaluated the participants’ sustained, selective, executive, and orienting of attention to assess whether they had attention-disorders, and if so, which functions were impaired. We then evaluated the effect of MBSR on each of the attention functions. Psychological measures including mindfulness, stress, reflection and rumination, lifesatisfaction, depression, anxiety, and sleep-disturbances were also evaluated. Nineteen Hebrew-readers completed a 2-month mindfulness workshop. The results showed that whereas reading errors of letter-migrations within and between words and vowelletter errors did not decrease following the workshop, most participants made fewer reading errors in general following the workshop, with a significant reduction of 19% from their original number of errors. This decrease mainly resulted from a decrease in errors that occur due to reading via the sublexical rather than the lexical route. It seems, therefore, that mindfulness helped reading by keeping the readers on the lexical route. This improvement in reading probably resulted from improved sustained attention: the reduction in sublexical reading was significant for the dyslexic participants who also had attention deficits, and there were significant correlations between reduced reading errors and decreases in

Mindful Reading: Mindfulness Meditation Helps Keep Readers with Dyslexia and ADHD on the Lexical Track.

Science.gov (United States)

Tarrasch, Ricardo; Berman, Zohar; Friedmann, Naama

2016-01-01

This study explored the effects of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) intervention on reading, attention, and psychological well-being among people with developmental dyslexia and/or attention deficits. Various types of dyslexia exist, characterized by different error types. We examined a question that has not been tested so far: which types of errors (and dyslexias) are affected by MBSR training. To do so, we tested, using an extensive battery of reading tests, whether each participant had dyslexia, and which errors types s/he makes, and then compared the rate of each error type before and after the MBSR workshop. We used a similar approach to attention disorders: we evaluated the participants' sustained, selective, executive, and orienting of attention to assess whether they had attention-disorders, and if so, which functions were impaired. We then evaluated the effect of MBSR on each of the attention functions. Psychological measures including mindfulness, stress, reflection and rumination, lifesatisfaction, depression, anxiety, and sleep-disturbances were also evaluated. Nineteen Hebrew-readers completed a 2-month mindfulness workshop. The results showed that whereas reading errors of letter-migrations within and between words and vowelletter errors did not decrease following the workshop, most participants made fewer reading errors in general following the workshop, with a significant reduction of 19% from their original number of errors. This decrease mainly resulted from a decrease in errors that occur due to reading via the sublexical rather than the lexical route. It seems, therefore, that mindfulness helped reading by keeping the readers on the lexical route. This improvement in reading probably resulted from improved sustained attention: the reduction in sublexical reading was significant for the dyslexic participants who also had attention deficits, and there were significant correlations between reduced reading errors and decreases in

Parents' reading-related knowledge and children's reading acquisition.

Science.gov (United States)

Ladd, Megan; Martin-Chang, Sandra; Levesque, Kyle

2011-12-01

Teacher reading-related knowledge (phonological awareness and phonics knowledge) predicts student reading, however little is known about the reading-related knowledge of parents. Participants comprised 70 dyads (children from kindergarten and grade 1 and their parents). Parents were administered a questionnaire tapping into reading-related knowledge, print exposure, storybook reading, and general cultural knowledge. Children were tested on measures of letter-word knowledge, sound awareness, receptive vocabulary, oral expression, and mathematical skill. Parent reading-related knowledge showed significant positive links with child letter-word knowledge and sound awareness, but showed no correlations with child measures of mathematical skill or vocabulary. Furthermore, parent reading-related knowledge was not associated with parents' own print exposure or cultural knowledge, indicating that knowledge about English word structure may be separate from other cognitive skills. Implications are discussed in terms of improving parent reading-related knowledge to promote child literacy.

Understanding of the Alphabetic Principle through Invented Spelling among Hearing-Impaired Children Learning to Read and Write: Experimentation with a Pedagogical Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Sirois, Pauline; Boisclair, Andree; Giasson, Jocelyne

2008-01-01

Given the problems experienced by hearing-impaired individuals in learning the written language, a pedagogical approach was tested. The study examined the links between the development of representations of alphabetic system and the results in reading and writing of first graders. In the study, there were 31 hearing-impaired children and 25…

NEW CONTRIBUTIONS TO READING DIFFICULTIES INTERVENTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

VÍCTOR SANTIUSTE BERMEJO

2005-01-01

Full Text Available This article presents a synthesis of the intervention programs and strategies to treat reading difficulties. The synthesisincludes a review of the last published articles on the issue, both in Spanish and English. It also presents the visits todifferent Language Rehabilitation Centers in the Community of Madrid including the approaches applied in thesecenters. Besides the description of the general intervention strategies applied to reading problems, some of theprograms to treat specific difficulties of words decoding and recognizing are explained, and the programs to treatreading comprehension and fluidity.

Why should I read? - A cross-cultural investigation into adolescents' reading socialisation and reading attitude

Science.gov (United States)

Broeder, Peter; Stokmans, Mia

2013-06-01

While reading behaviour of adolescents is a frequent object of research, most studies in this field are restricted to a single country. This study investigates reading as a leisure-time activity across social groups from three regions differing in reading tradition as well as in the facilities available for reading. The authors analyse the reading behaviour of a total of 2,173 adolescents in the Netherlands, in Beijing (China), and in Cape Town (South Africa). Taking Icek Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour as a starting point, the authors adjusted it to model the three most important determinants of reading behaviour, namely (1) reading attitude; (2) subjective norms (implicit and explicit social pressure to read); and (3) perceived behavioural control, which includes reading proficiency and appropriateness of the available books (book supply). While they found the adjusted model to fit the Dutch and Beijing situation quite well, it appeared to be inappropriate for the Cape Town situation. Despite considerable cultural and situational differences between the Netherlands and Beijing, the results show a similar pattern for these two environments. The most important determinants turn out to be: the hedonic reading attitude, the implicit norm of family and friends, the attractiveness of the available choice of books, and the perceived reading proficiency.

Impact Of Using Joint Productive Activity Approach On Second Language Learners’ Performance In Reading Comprehension At The Basic Education Level In Nigeria

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

HANNA ONYI YUSUF

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This study investigated the impact of using joint productive activity on the performance of second language learners in reading comprehension at the basic education level in Nigeria. A sample of forty (40 Junior Secondary II students from Kaduna North and South were used for the study. The study was quasi experimental. Government Junior Secondary School Doka was used as the experimental group while Government Junior Secondary School Makera was used as the control group. Both groups were assessed after six weeks of teaching using two reading comprehension tests. T-test was used to test the hypothesis raised in the study. The findings revealed significant differences in the performance of students taught reading comprehension using joint productive activity. Based on the findings teachers are encouraged to use joint productive activities in teaching reading comprehension. This is a positive deviation from the traditional practice in Nigeria where a teacher is regarded as the sole custodian of knowledge and students are empty tabula rasa who should be passive during class teaching. Teachers need to exploit this new approach by designing teaching comprehension activities that will require second language learners’ collaboration and active participation in accomplishing tasks jointly in class with the teacher.

Contig-Layout-Authenticator (CLA): A Combinatorial Approach to Ordering and Scaffolding of Bacterial Contigs for Comparative Genomics and Molecular Epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Shaik, Sabiha; Kumar, Narender; Lankapalli, Aditya K; Tiwari, Sumeet K; Baddam, Ramani; Ahmed, Niyaz

2016-01-01

A wide variety of genome sequencing platforms have emerged in the recent past. High-throughput platforms like Illumina and 454 are essentially adaptations of the shotgun approach generating millions of fragmented single or paired sequencing reads. To reconstruct whole genomes, the reads have to be assembled into contigs, which often require further downstream processing. The contigs can be directly ordered according to a reference, scaffolded based on paired read information, or assembled using a combination of the two approaches. While the reference-based approach appears to mask strain-specific information, scaffolding based on paired-end information suffers when repetitive elements longer than the size of the sequencing reads are present in the genome. Sequencing technologies that produce long reads can solve the problems associated with repetitive elements but are not necessarily easily available to researchers. The most common high-throughput technology currently used is the Illumina short read platform. To improve upon the shortcomings associated with the construction of draft genomes with Illumina paired-end sequencing, we developed Contig-Layout-Authenticator (CLA). The CLA pipeline can scaffold reference-sorted contigs based on paired reads, resulting in better assembled genomes. Moreover, CLA also hints at probable misassemblies and contaminations, for the users to cross-check before constructing the consensus draft. The CLA pipeline was designed and trained extensively on various bacterial genome datasets for the ordering and scaffolding of large repetitive contigs. The tool has been validated and compared favorably with other widely-used scaffolding and ordering tools using both simulated and real sequence datasets. CLA is a user friendly tool that requires a single command line input to generate ordered scaffolds.

Reading fiction during sick leave, a multidimensional occupation.

Science.gov (United States)

Mårtensson, Lena; Andersson, Christina

2015-01-01

In bibliotherapy, the therapeutic gains of reading fiction are ascribed to the literature. Viewing reading fiction as an occupation may give other explanations of its therapeutic function. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of reading fiction among women during a period of sick leave. A qualitative approach was applied. Eight women who had been reading fiction during sick leave were interviewed. An overarching theme: Supporting one's active self, comprised five categories of experiences: a prospect of ordinary life, a place of refuge, a life together with others, a source of power, and as supporting an active life. Based on the categories, reading fiction is seen to comprise intentional, functional, mental, relational, and personal dimensions. A tentative model of supporting one's active self is proposed, which may be helpful in clarifying the mechanisms of the process of change. The health-related dimensions of reading fiction suggest that reading fiction should be regarded as a significant occupation comparable with other, more highlighted ones. Understood in this way, it is argued that the results add to the knowledge base in occupational therapy focusing on how meaningful occupations connect to occupational life trajectories.

Using data crawlers and semantic Web to build financial XBRL data generators: the SONAR extension approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodríguez-García, Miguel Ángel; Rodríguez-González, Alejandro; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; Valencia-García, Rafael; Gómez-Berbís, Juan Miguel; García-Sánchez, Francisco

2014-01-01

Precise, reliable and real-time financial information is critical for added-value financial services after the economic turmoil from which markets are still struggling to recover. Since the Web has become the most significant data source, intelligent crawlers based on Semantic Technologies have become trailblazers in the search of knowledge combining natural language processing and ontology engineering techniques. In this paper, we present the SONAR extension approach, which will leverage the potential of knowledge representation by extracting, managing, and turning scarce and disperse financial information into well-classified, structured, and widely used XBRL format-oriented knowledge, strongly supported by a proof-of-concept implementation and a thorough evaluation of the benefits of the approach.

Using Data Crawlers and Semantic Web to Build Financial XBRL Data Generators: The SONAR Extension Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miguel Ángel Rodríguez-García

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Precise, reliable and real-time financial information is critical for added-value financial services after the economic turmoil from which markets are still struggling to recover. Since the Web has become the most significant data source, intelligent crawlers based on Semantic Technologies have become trailblazers in the search of knowledge combining natural language processing and ontology engineering techniques. In this paper, we present the SONAR extension approach, which will leverage the potential of knowledge representation by extracting, managing, and turning scarce and disperse financial information into well-classified, structured, and widely used XBRL format-oriented knowledge, strongly supported by a proof-of-concept implementation and a thorough evaluation of the benefits of the approach.

Using Data Crawlers and Semantic Web to Build Financial XBRL Data Generators: The SONAR Extension Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Rodríguez-García, Miguel Ángel; Rodríguez-González, Alejandro; Valencia-García, Rafael; Gómez-Berbís, Juan Miguel

2014-01-01

Precise, reliable and real-time financial information is critical for added-value financial services after the economic turmoil from which markets are still struggling to recover. Since the Web has become the most significant data source, intelligent crawlers based on Semantic Technologies have become trailblazers in the search of knowledge combining natural language processing and ontology engineering techniques. In this paper, we present the SONAR extension approach, which will leverage the potential of knowledge representation by extracting, managing, and turning scarce and disperse financial information into well-classified, structured, and widely used XBRL format-oriented knowledge, strongly supported by a proof-of-concept implementation and a thorough evaluation of the benefits of the approach. PMID:24587726

Reading "Las Meninas": An Ekphrastic Approach to Teaching "Don Quijote"

Science.gov (United States)

Ortuno, Marian

2012-01-01

Reading and teaching "Don Quijote" present multiple challenges to twenty-first century students and instructors who are culturally and historically distanced from the seventeenth century. With "Las Meninas" serving as a visual lexicon for cuing correlative themes and events in "Don Quijote", the instructor, through an ekphrastic, interdisciplinary…

Comparison of reading speed with 3 different log-scaled reading charts.

Science.gov (United States)

Buari, Noor Halilah; Chen, Ai-Hong; Musa, Nuraini

2014-01-01

A reading chart that resembles real reading conditions is important to evaluate the quality of life in terms of reading performance. The purpose of this study was to compare the reading speed of UiTM Malay related words (UiTM-Mrw) reading chart with MNread Acuity Chart and Colenbrander Reading Chart. Fifty subjects with normal sight were randomly recruited through randomized sampling in this study (mean age=22.98±1.65 years). Subjects were asked to read three different near charts aloud and as quickly as possible at random sequence. The charts were the UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart, MNread Acuity Chart and Colenbrander Reading Chart, respectively. The time taken to read each chart was recorded and any errors while reading were noted. Reading performance was quantified in terms of reading speed as words per minute (wpm). The mean reading speed for UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart, MNread Acuity Chart and Colenbrander Reading Chart was 200±30wpm, 196±28wpm and 194±31wpm, respectively. Comparison of reading speed between UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart and MNread Acuity Chart showed no significant difference (t=-0.73, p=0.72). The same happened with the reading speed between UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart and Colenbrander Reading Chart (t=-0.97, p=0.55). Bland and Altman plot showed good agreement between reading speed of UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart with MNread Acuity Chart with the Colenbrander Reading Chart. UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart in Malay language is highly comparable with standardized charts and can be used for evaluating reading speed. Copyright © 2013 Spanish General Council of Optometry. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

MDMA enhances "mind reading" of positive emotions and impairs "mind reading" of negative emotions.

Science.gov (United States)

Hysek, Cédric M; Domes, Gregor; Liechti, Matthias E

2012-07-01

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) increases sociability. The prosocial effects of MDMA may result from the release of the "social hormone" oxytocin and associated alterations in the processing of socioemotional stimuli. We investigated the effects of MDMA (125 mg) on the ability to infer the mental states of others from social cues of the eye region in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. The study included 48 healthy volunteers (24 men, 24 women) and used a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design. A choice reaction time test was used to exclude impairments in psychomotor function. We also measured circulating oxytocin and cortisol levels and subjective drug effects. MDMA differentially affected mind reading depending on the emotional valence of the stimuli. MDMA enhanced the accuracy of mental state decoding for positive stimuli (e.g., friendly), impaired mind reading for negative stimuli (e.g., hostile), and had no effect on mind reading for neutral stimuli (e.g., reflective). MDMA did not affect psychomotor performance, increased circulating oxytocin and cortisol levels, and produced subjective prosocial effects, including feelings of being more open, talkative, and closer to others. The shift in the ability to correctly read socioemotional information toward stimuli associated with positive emotional valence, together with the prosocial feelings elicited by MDMA, may enhance social approach behavior and sociability when MDMA is used recreationally and facilitate therapeutic relationships in MDMA-assisted psychotherapeutic settings.

Progressive outcomes of collaborative strategic reading to EFL learners

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Sofyan A. Gani

2016-09-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to discover the effects of using Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR in teaching reading to EFL learners. The method used in this study was experimental research which referred to the true experimental design through tests and a questionnaire as data collection instruments. The questionnaire consisted of items to gain the students' responses toward 3 categories of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR implementation on their reading ability, namely: instruction, procedure, and impact. In total, 67 students in a senior high school in Banda Aceh were involved as participants (32 students in the experimental group and 35 students in the control group. The data were analyzed using the mean, standard deviation, and Z-test percentage. The Z-score between the experimental group and control group was 2.37. The critical value of the Z-score for 68 degrees of freedom was 2.01 at the .05 significance level. Therefore, the critical value of the students' Z-score (2.37 was significant at the .05 level. This indicated that the students who were taught reading using CSR achieved better scores than those who were taught using the non-CSR approach. The results of the questionnaire further showed that more than 80 percent of the students gave vastly positive responses in relation to CSR classroom implementation. This approach not only helped them to develop their reading skills, but also produced positive outcomes in their social relationships and interactions in the classroom.

Spin texture readout of a Moore-Read topological quantum register

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Romers, J.C.; Schoutens, K.

2012-01-01

We study the composite charged spin texture (CST) over the Moore-Read quantum Hall state that arises when a collection of elementary CSTs is moved to the same location. Following an algebraic approach based on the characteristic pair correlations of the Moore-Read state, we find that the spin

Charged spin textures over the Moore-Read quantum Hall state

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Romers, J.C.; Huijse, L.; Schoutens, K.

2011-01-01

We study the composite Charged Spin Texture (CST) over the Moore-Read quantum Hall state that arises when a collection of elementary CSTs are moved to the same location. Following an algebraic approach based on the characteristic pair correlations of the Moore- Read state, we and that the resulting

Evaluation of use of reading comprehension strategies to improve reading comprehension of adult college students with acquired brain injury.

Science.gov (United States)

Griffiths, Gina G; Sohlberg, McKay Moore; Kirk, Cecilia; Fickas, Stephen; Biancarosa, Gina

2016-01-01

Adults with mild to moderate acquired brain injury (ABI) often pursue post-secondary or professional education after their injuries in order to enter or re-enter the job market. An increasing number of these adults report problems with reading-to-learn. The problem is particularly concerning given the growing population of adult survivors of ABI. Despite the rising need, empirical evaluation of reading comprehension interventions for adults with ABI is scarce. This study used a within-subject design to evaluate whether adult college students with ABI with no more than moderate cognitive impairments benefited from using reading comprehension strategies to improve comprehension of expository text. Integrating empirical support from the cognitive rehabilitation and special education literature, the researchers designed a multi-component reading comprehension strategy package. Participants read chapters from an introductory-level college anthropology textbook in two different conditions: strategy and no-strategy. The results indicated that reading comprehension strategy use was associated with recall of more correct information units in immediate and delayed free recall tasks; more efficient recall in the delayed free recall task; and increased accuracy recognising statements from a sentence verification task designed to reflect the local and global coherence of the text. The findings support further research into using reading comprehension strategies as an intervention approach for the adult ABI population. Future research needs include identifying how to match particular reading comprehension strategies to individuals, examining whether reading comprehension performance improves further through the incorporation of systematic training, and evaluating texts from a range of disciplines and genres.

Reading, writing, rebelling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Doubinsky, Sebastien

2017-01-01

What is reading? What is writing? What connects the two? These questions have been the fertile ground for many literary and philosophical theories, from New Criticism to Deconstruction. This essay does not pretend answering to these two questions, but rather to question the question themselves...... and try to shed a different light of this essential problematic. Choosing not to consider literature as a stable concept, but rather as an ontologically impermanent one, I try to reflect upon the terms that condition our approach of works and of the creation of these works. In a large perspective......, the notions of “reading” and “writing” are examined through the prism of their incarnations as “works”, and the consequences of this identity have on our critical discourse. In order to read critically, one must thus recognize this immanent instability of our notions and definitions, and begin from...

What oral text reading fluency can reveal about reading comprehension

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Veenendaal, N.J.; Groen, M.A.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.

2015-01-01

Text reading fluency – the ability to read quickly, accurately and with a natural intonation – has been proposed as a predictor of reading comprehension. In the current study, we examined the role of oral text reading fluency, defined as text reading rate and text reading prosody, as a contributor

An efficient and extensible approach for compressing phylogenetic trees

KAUST Repository

Matthews, Suzanne J

2011-01-01

Background: Biologists require new algorithms to efficiently compress and store their large collections of phylogenetic trees. Our previous work showed that TreeZip is a promising approach for compressing phylogenetic trees. In this paper, we extend our TreeZip algorithm by handling trees with weighted branches. Furthermore, by using the compressed TreeZip file as input, we have designed an extensible decompressor that can extract subcollections of trees, compute majority and strict consensus trees, and merge tree collections using set operations such as union, intersection, and set difference.Results: On unweighted phylogenetic trees, TreeZip is able to compress Newick files in excess of 98%. On weighted phylogenetic trees, TreeZip is able to compress a Newick file by at least 73%. TreeZip can be combined with 7zip with little overhead, allowing space savings in excess of 99% (unweighted) and 92%(weighted). Unlike TreeZip, 7zip is not immune to branch rotations, and performs worse as the level of variability in the Newick string representation increases. Finally, since the TreeZip compressed text (TRZ) file contains all the semantic information in a collection of trees, we can easily filter and decompress a subset of trees of interest (such as the set of unique trees), or build the resulting consensus tree in a matter of seconds. We also show the ease of which set operations can be performed on TRZ files, at speeds quicker than those performed on Newick or 7zip compressed Newick files, and without loss of space savings.Conclusions: TreeZip is an efficient approach for compressing large collections of phylogenetic trees. The semantic and compact nature of the TRZ file allow it to be operated upon directly and quickly, without a need to decompress the original Newick file. We believe that TreeZip will be vital for compressing and archiving trees in the biological community. © 2011 Matthews and Williams; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Can the chasms be bridged? Different approaches to Bible reading ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Reality confronts theologians with the fact that they themselves and believers across the world read and interpret the Bible in diverse ways. Understanding the reason for this is part of the solution. The essence of the problem is that the quest for meaning is an unending journey with frequent ravines to cross. Invariably ...

Extensive characterization of Tupaia belangeri neuropeptidome using an integrated mass spectrometric approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Petruzziello, Filomena; Fouillen, Laetitia; Wadensten, Henrik; Kretz, Robert; Andren, Per E; Rainer, Gregor; Zhang, Xiaozhe

2012-02-03

Neuropeptidomics is used to characterize endogenous peptides in the brain of tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri). Tree shrews are small animals similar to rodents in size but close relatives of primates, and are excellent models for brain research. Currently, tree shrews have no complete proteome information available on which direct database search can be allowed for neuropeptide identification. To increase the capability in the identification of neuropeptides in tree shrews, we developed an integrated mass spectrometry (MS)-based approach that combines methods including data-dependent, directed, and targeted liquid chromatography (LC)-Fourier transform (FT)-tandem MS (MS/MS) analysis, database construction, de novo sequencing, precursor protein search, and homology analysis. Using this integrated approach, we identified 107 endogenous peptides that have sequences identical or similar to those from other mammalian species. High accuracy MS and tandem MS information, with BLAST analysis and chromatographic characteristics were used to confirm the sequences of all the identified peptides. Interestingly, further sequence homology analysis demonstrated that tree shrew peptides have a significantly higher degree of homology to equivalent sequences in humans than those in mice or rats, consistent with the close phylogenetic relationship between tree shrews and primates. Our results provide the first extensive characterization of the peptidome in tree shrews, which now permits characterization of their function in nervous and endocrine system. As the approach developed fully used the conservative properties of neuropeptides in evolution and the advantage of high accuracy MS, it can be portable for identification of neuropeptides in other species for which the fully sequenced genomes or proteomes are not available.

A new type of spurious reading in TL personnel monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duftschmid, K.E.; Stadtmann, H.; Strachotinsky, Ch.; Winker, N.

1996-01-01

A particularly serious type of spurious reading in automated TL personnel monitoring has been observed. These readings simulate dose values up to several mSv and can only be detected by glow curve analysis. Characteristics for these events are high artifical dose values and irregular glow curves of a particular shape. Extensive investigations to reproduce this effect purposely failed to produce any results. It can be assumed, however, that it must be some chemical surface contamination, which penetrates the sealed dosemeter bag or which is transferred from the bag to the detector. The effect can be eliminated by manual cleaning of the dosemeter cards. The importance of this observation lies in the fact that only proper glow curve evaluation can prevent the monitoring service from reporting artificial high dose readings creating lots of serious problems. The paper shows how this problem can be avoided for this kind of spurious effect, if glow curves are available and stored for every dosemeter readout. (author)

TagDust2: a generic method to extract reads from sequencing data.

Science.gov (United States)

Lassmann, Timo

2015-01-28

Arguably the most basic step in the analysis of next generation sequencing data (NGS) involves the extraction of mappable reads from the raw reads produced by sequencing instruments. The presence of barcodes, adaptors and artifacts subject to sequencing errors makes this step non-trivial. Here I present TagDust2, a generic approach utilizing a library of hidden Markov models (HMM) to accurately extract reads from a wide array of possible read architectures. TagDust2 extracts more reads of higher quality compared to other approaches. Processing of multiplexed single, paired end and libraries containing unique molecular identifiers is fully supported. Two additional post processing steps are included to exclude known contaminants and filter out low complexity sequences. Finally, TagDust2 can automatically detect the library type of sequenced data from a predefined selection. Taken together TagDust2 is a feature rich, flexible and adaptive solution to go from raw to mappable NGS reads in a single step. The ability to recognize and record the contents of raw reads will help to automate and demystify the initial, and often poorly documented, steps in NGS data analysis pipelines. TagDust2 is freely available at: http://tagdust.sourceforge.net .

Postcolonial Theory in the Literature Classroom: Contrapuntal Readings.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Michael Garbutcheon; Greenlaw, James

1998-01-01

Recommends an approach to teaching students about changing relations between Asian and Anglo-Pacific nations that avoids the economic reductionism, sexism, and racism of orientalist pedagogy, suggesting a pedagogy based on Said's contrapuntal approach to reading literature, which encourages students to question how Asians are portrayed in films…

Reading: Time

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Annemarie Wennekers; Frank Huysmans; Jos de Haan

2018-01-01

Original title: Lees:Tijd The amount of time that Dutch people spend reading has been declining steadily since the 1950s. This decline in reading time contrasts starkly with the positive personal and social benefits that can be derived from reading, according to lots of research. The Reading:

Challenges for extension service to render efficient post-transformer ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

LPhidza

After independence the government led agricultural extension services slowly started moving away from the Transfer of Technology (ToT) to Training and Visit approach followed by the. Farming System Research and Extension (FSRE) approach. Most of the subsidies that had. 17 PhD Student University of Pretoria, ...

Reading Strategies to Develop Higher Thinking Skills for Reading Comprehension (Estrategias de lectura para el desarrollo de habilidades de pensamiento para la comprensión de lectura)

Science.gov (United States)

Echeverri Acosta, Luz Marina; McNulty Ferri, Maria

2010-01-01

This paper reports an action research project which examined the foreign language reading comprehension of public school eighth graders who experienced a directed reading-thinking approach with strategies for comprehension and application. The strategies used were prediction, prior knowledge, graphic organizers, and questions. Data analyzed…

Multi-Period Natural Gas Market Modeling. Applications, Stochastic Extensions and Solution Approaches

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Egging, R.G.

2010-11-01

This dissertation develops deterministic and stochastic multi-period mixed complementarity problems (MCP) for the global natural gas market, as well as solution approaches for large-scale stochastic MCP. The deterministic model is unique in the combination of the level of detail of the actors in the natural gas markets and the transport options, the detailed regional and global coverage, the multi-period approach with endogenous capacity expansions for transportation and storage infrastructure, the seasonal variation in demand and the representation of market power according to Nash-Cournot theory. The model is applied to several scenarios for the natural gas market that cover the formation of a cartel by the members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a low availability of unconventional gas in the United States, and cost reductions in long-distance gas transportation. The results provide insights in how different regions are affected by various developments, in terms of production, consumption, traded volumes, prices and profits of market participants. The stochastic MCP is developed and applied to a global natural gas market problem with four scenarios for a time horizon until 2050 with nineteen regions and containing 78,768 variables. The scenarios vary in the possibility of a gas market cartel formation and varying depletion rates of gas reserves in the major gas importing regions. Outcomes for hedging decisions of market participants show some significant shifts in the timing and location of infrastructure investments, thereby affecting local market situations. A first application of Benders decomposition (BD) is presented to solve a large-scale stochastic MCP for the global gas market with many hundreds of first-stage capacity expansion variables and market players exerting various levels of market power. The largest problem solved successfully using BD contained 47,373 variables of which 763 first-stage variables, however using BD did not result in

The Effect of Reading Involvement through Open-Ended Strategy vs. Fill-in- the- Blanks Strategy on Young EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension Ability

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Rita Salehi Sepehr

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The present study investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of integrating strategy instruction (open-ended strategy and fill-in-the blanks strategy with motivation- support affected on reading result for young EFL learners. The central area of exploration included a comparison among three approaches to reading instruction: First, fill-in-the blanks strategy intervention; second, open-ended strategy intervention; and last, a control group which received the conventional reading strategies. The participants were sampled from amongst a group of seventy-seven pre-intermediate EFL learners in a language school in Tehran- Iran based on convenient sampling technique. For the sake of measurement, the researchers administered PET and CELT along with reading strategy based-test to quantify the participants’ current level of knowledge as well as the degree of achievement after treatment. For measurement’s sake, different types of tests such as PET, reading comprehension test (CELT, and reading strategy based- test were employed to quantify the participants’ current level of knowledge as well as the degree of achievement before and after instruction. The result of the present study indicated that the experimental groups had a significant improvement over the control group. Also, the level of learners’ reading engagement during classroom work mediated the instructional effects on reading outcomes. The results of this study can be to the benefit of both EFL and ESL teachers to teach reading comprehension using the student's critical mind as well as critical involvement in the reading tasks.

An investigation of Chinese university EFL learner’s foreign language reading anxiety, reading strategy use and reading comprehension performance

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Zhongshe Lu

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The present study explored the interrelations between foreign language (FL reading anxiety, FL reading strategy use and their interactive effect on FL reading comprehension performance at the tertiary level in China. Analyses of the survey data collected from 1702 university students yielded the following results: (a Both Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS and Foreign Language Reading Strategy Use Scale (FLRSUS had important subcomponents, (b more than half of the students generally did not feel anxious when reading English, and were confident in and satisfied with their English reading proficiency. Meanwhile, (c more than half of them moderately used different types of reading strategies such as planning, checking and confirming, predicting and assessing, when reading English, (d compared with their female peers, male students felt significantly more anxious when facing reading activities, less satisfied with their English reading proficiency, and used specific analyzing and planning strategies significantly less often during a reading activity, (e FLRAS was significantly inversely related to FLRSUS, and both were significantly correlated with the students’ FL reading comprehension performance, and (f FLRAS (overall FL reading anxiety, FLRAS1 (general anxiety about FL reading, and FLRSUS2 (predicting strategies were good predictors of FL reading comprehension performance. Based on the findings, some implications are discussed.

Enhancing Vocabulary Acquisition through Reading: A Hierarchy of Text-Related Exercise Types.

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Wesche, M.; Paribakht, T. Sima

This paper describes a classification scheme developed to examine the effects of extensive reading on primary and second language vocabulary acquisition and reports on an experiment undertaken to test the model scheme. The classification scheme represents a hypothesized hierarchy of the degree and type of mental processing required by various…

Suggesting a new paradigm for agricultural extension policy: the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In terms of approaches and functions, the study found that public sector extension in West Africa is undergoing transformation including decentralization and outsourcing extension services in the context of adopting a pluralistic system of extension delivery. While up to six models of extension are a commonly applied in the ...

How reading comprehension is embodied and why that matters

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Arthur M. GLENBERG

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Reading comprehension, much like comprehension of situations and comprehension of oral language, is embodied. In all cases, comprehension is the ability to take effective action on the basis ofaffordances related to the body, the physical world, and personal goals and cultural norms. In language contexts, action-based comprehension arises from simulating the linguistic content usingneural and bodily systems of perception, action, and emotion. Within this framework, a new approach to teaching reading comprehension is described: Teach children how to simulate while reading. TheMoved by Reading intervention teaches simulation in two stages. In the first stage, physical manipulation, children manipulate toys to simulate the content of what they are reading. After success in physically manipulating the toys, the children are taught to manipulate the toys in imagination. Research demonstrates that both physical and imagined manipulation leads to large gains in memory and comprehension.

How reading comprehension is embodied and why that matters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arthur M. Glenberg

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Reading comprehension, much like comprehension of situations and comprehension of oral language, is embodied. In all cases, comprehension is the ability to take effective action on the basis of affordances related to the body, the physical world, and personal goals and cultural norms. In language contexts, action-based comprehension arises from simulating the linguistic content using neural and bodily systems of perception, action, and emotion. Within this framework, a new approach to teaching reading comprehension is described: Teach children how to simulate while reading. The Moved by Reading intervention teaches simulation in two stages. In the first stage, physical manipulation, children manipulate toys to simulate the content of what they are reading. After success in physically manipulating the toys, the children are taught to manipulate the toys in imagination. Research demonstrates that both physical and imagined manipulation leads to large gains in memory and comprehension.

The Habit of Reading: A Neglected Dimension of Adult Reading Instruction.

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Fink, Katherine T.; Devine, Thomas G.

1993-01-01

Less competent adult readers have not developed the habit of reading. Ways to cultivate adult reading habits include relevant material, environment saturated with reading material, reading aloud to adults, having them read to children, sustained silent reading, modeling, book sharing, author conferences, and recognition. (SK)

Miraculous Readings: Using Fantasy Novels about Reading to Reflect on Reading the Bible

Science.gov (United States)

Dalton, Russell W.

2009-01-01

This article reflects on the vivid images of reading presented in several popular fantasy novels, including "The Spiderwick Chronicles," "The Great Good Thing," and "The Neverending Story." It suggests that these images can be used to help children, youth, and adults reflect on the nature of reading and the potential power of reading sacred texts.…

Reading Every Single Day: A Journey to Authentic Reading

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Hudson, Alida K.; Williams, Joan A.

2015-01-01

This article details one teacher's implementation of reading workshop in her second grade classroom. She provided a framework for authentic reading using the five components of reading workshop: time, choice, response, community, and structure. She found that reading workshop is a highly effective practice for not only increasing students'…

Reading Comics

Science.gov (United States)

Tilley, Carol L.

2008-01-01

Many adults, even librarians who willingly add comics to their collections, often dismiss the importance of comics. Compared to reading "real" books, reading comics appears to be a simple task and compared to reading no books, reading comics might be preferable. After all, comics do have words, but the plentiful pictures seem to carry most of the…

Reading Processes of University Students with Dyslexia - An Examination of the Relationship between Oral Reading and Reading Comprehension.

Science.gov (United States)

Pedersen, Henriette Folkmann; Fusaroli, Riccardo; Lauridsen, Lene Louise; Parrila, Rauno

2016-11-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the quality of oral reading and how it relates to reading comprehension in students with dyslexia. A group of Danish university students with dyslexia (n = 16) and a comparison group of students with no history of reading problems (n = 16) were assessed on their oral reading performance when reading a complex text. Along with reading speed, we measured not only the number and quality of reading errors but also the extent and semantic nature of the self-corrections during reading. The reading comprehension was measured through aided text retellings. The results showed that, as a group, the dyslexics performed poorer on most measures, but there were notable within-group differences in the reading behaviours and little association between how well university students with dyslexia read aloud and comprehended the text. These findings suggest that many dyslexics in higher education tend to focus their attention on one subcomponent of the reading process, for example, decoding or comprehension, because engaging in both simultaneously may be too demanding for them. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reading fluency: implications for the assessment of children with reading disabilities.

Science.gov (United States)

Meisinger, Elizabeth B; Bloom, Juliana S; Hynd, George W

2010-06-01

The current investigation explored the diagnostic utility of reading fluency measures in the identification of children with reading disabilities. Participants were 50 children referred to a university-based clinic because of suspected reading problems and/or a prior diagnosis of dyslexia, where children completed a battery of standardized intellectual, reading achievement, and processing measures. Within this clinical sample, a group of children were identified that exhibited specific deficits in their reading fluency skills with concurrent deficits in rapid naming speed and reading comprehension. This group of children would not have been identified as having a reading disability according to assessment of single word reading skills alone, suggesting that it is essential to assess reading fluency in addition to word reading because failure to do so may result in the under-identification of children with reading disabilities.

Reading for excess : Relational autobiography, affect and popular culture in Tarnation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Poletti, Anna

2012-01-01

In this article I will examine a limit point in current methods of reading in autobiography studies, using Jonathan Caouette's 2003 autobiographical film Tarnation as a case study. Reading a powerful and deeply ambiguous key scene from the film, I investigate the limits of a narrative-based approach

"Read the Text, as if!"The Reading Retention Strategy

Science.gov (United States)

Divoll, Kent; Browning, Sandra

2013-01-01

Students do not always read what is expected in college courses (Berry, Cook, Hill, & Stevens, 2010; Phillips & Phillips, 2007; Sikorski et al., 2002) or they read to cram for an exam or quiz (Clump, Bauer, & Bradley, 2004). The Reading Retention Strategy (RRS) is designed to motivate students to read and assist students in…

Do reading additions improve reading in pre-presbyopes with low vision?

Science.gov (United States)

Alabdulkader, Balsam; Leat, Susan

2012-09-01

This study compared three different methods of determining a reading addition and the possible improvement on reading performance in children and young adults with low vision. Twenty-eight participants with low vision, aged 8 to 32 years, took part in the study. Reading additions were determined with (a) a modified Nott dynamic retinoscopy, (b) a subjective method, and (c) an age-based formula. Reading performance was assessed with MNREAD-style reading charts at 12.5 cm, with and without each reading addition in random order. Outcome measures were reading speed, critical print size, MNREAD threshold, and the area under the reading speed curve. For the whole group, there was no significant improvement in reading performance with any of the additions. When participants with normal accommodation at 12.5 cm were excluded, the area under the reading speed curve was significantly greater with all reading additions compared with no addition (p = 0.031, 0.028, and 0.028, respectively). Also, the reading acuity threshold was significantly better with all reading additions compared with no addition (p = 0.014, 0.030, and 0.036, respectively). Distance and near visual acuity, age, and contrast sensitivity did not predict improvement with a reading addition. All, but one, of the participants who showed a significant improvement in reading with an addition had reduced accommodation. A reading addition may improve reading performance for young people with low vision and should be considered as part of a low vision assessment, particularly when accommodation is reduced.

Literary text reading and conversation: beyond ethnomethodology boundaries

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Viviana Suárez Galvis

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This article leaves aside ethnomethodological approaches to conversation, and aims at opening the debate about the need of conceiving it under the light of pedagogical principles that position it as a propitious discursive gender to express the emotional, aesthetics, thoughtful, and intellectual meetings embodied while reading literary texts. Such interest arose from a research centered on finding the existing relationships between conversation and construction of aesthetical-literary experiences. The results show that students get a pleasant feeling when giving sense to what they read, and this encourages them to share with others their significant experiences when reading, allowing the internal process of meaning construction and the dialogic strengthening of the experiences to be connected.

Navigating Comics: An Empirical and Theoretical Approach to Strategies of Reading Comic Page Layouts

Science.gov (United States)

Cohn, Neil

2013-01-01

Like the sequence of words in written language, comic book page layouts direct images into a deliberate reading sequence. Conventional wisdom would expect that comic panels follow the order of text: left-to-right and down – a “Z-path” – though several layouts can violate this order, such as Gestalt groupings of panels that deny a Z-path of reading. To examine how layouts pressure readers to choose pathways deviating from the Z-path, we presented participants with comic pages empty of content, and asked them to number the panels in the order they would read them. Participants frequently used strategies departing from both the traditional Z-path and Gestalt groupings. These preferences reveal a system of constraints that organizes panels into hierarchic constituents, guiding readers through comic page layouts. PMID:23616776

Navigating comics: an empirical and theoretical approach to strategies of reading comic page layouts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Neil eCohn

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Like the sequence of words in written language, comic book page layouts direct images into a deliberate reading sequence. Conventional wisdom would expect that comic panels follow the order of text: left-to-right and down—a Z-path—though several layouts can violate this order, such as Gestalt groupings of panels that deny a Z-path of reading. To examine how layouts pressure readers to choose pathways deviating from the Z-path, we presented participants with comic pages empty of content, and asked them to number the panels in the order they would read them. Participants frequently used strategies departing from both the traditional Z-path and Gestalt groupings. These preferences reveal a system of constraints that organizes panels into hierarchic constituents, guiding readers through comic page layouts.

Navigating comics: an empirical and theoretical approach to strategies of reading comic page layouts.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohn, Neil

2013-01-01

Like the sequence of words in written language, comic book page layouts direct images into a deliberate reading sequence. Conventional wisdom would expect that comic panels follow the order of text: left-to-right and down - a "Z-path" - though several layouts can violate this order, such as Gestalt groupings of panels that deny a Z-path of reading. To examine how layouts pressure readers to choose pathways deviating from the Z-path, we presented participants with comic pages empty of content, and asked them to number the panels in the order they would read them. Participants frequently used strategies departing from both the traditional Z-path and Gestalt groupings. These preferences reveal a system of constraints that organizes panels into hierarchic constituents, guiding readers through comic page layouts.

Maternal Reading Self-Efficacy Associated with Perceived Barriers to Reading

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joyce Lin

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Although early reading practices impact a host of child literacy, language, and school outcomes, many parents do not read to their young children. One possible explanation for this lack of early literacy practices is mothers’ feelings about their ability to successfully read to their children. A series of multiple regressions were used to explore whether new mothers’ reading self-efficacy predicted their perceived barriers to reading to their 18-month-old children. Findings suggest that self-efficacy buffers against mother-centered (e.g., too tired, child-centered (e.g., toddler fussy, and structural (e.g., environmental distractions barriers to reading. Given the importance of early literacy and that not all mothers read to their toddlers, increasing reading self-efficacy may offer a way to reduce perceived barriers to early literacy practices.

Reading Strategies Used by Iranian EFL Learners While Reading Academic Texts

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Vida Yousefian

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The major aim of this study was to explore the nature and frequency of the reading strategies used by the EFL learners while reading academic texts. Normally, students tend to read all the information provided in reading materials. This study explores whether learners use reading strategies to assist them in reading comprehension. There was a sample of 45 English language (EFL learners from Islamic Azad University, Falavarjan Branch. The instrument utilized in this study was a survey questionnaire with 30 items including 13 global reading strategies, 8 problem solving strategies and 9 support reading strategies. The survey was going to signify how much EFL learners use each of these strategies while reading academic texts. The findings indicated that the participants used global reading strategies more (44.5% than problem solving strategies (29.0% and support reading strategies (26.5%. The results of the present study will let the instructors improve the reading strategies which are not used by EFL learners frequently. It also helps learners to promote the ability of using reading strategies and utilize the strategies in an appropriate and effective way.

Web-based diagnosis and therapy of auditory prerequisites for reading and spelling

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Krammer, Sandra

2006-11-01

Full Text Available Cognitive deficits in auditory or visual processing or in verbal short-term-memory are amongst others risk factors for the development of dyslexia (reading and spelling disability. By early identification and intervention (optimally before school entry, detrimental effects of these cognitive deficits on reading and spelling might be prevented. The goal of the CASPAR-project is to develop and evaluate web-based tools for diagnosis and therapy of cognitive prerequisites for reading and spelling, which are appropriate for kindergarten children. In the first approach CASPAR addresses auditory processing disorders. This article describes a computerized and web-based approach for screening and testing phoneme discrimination and for promoting phoneme discrimination abilities through interactive games in kindergarteners.

Comparing emerging and mature markets during times of crises: A non-extensive statistical approach

Science.gov (United States)

Namaki, A.; Koohi Lai, Z.; Jafari, G. R.; Raei, R.; Tehrani, R.

2013-07-01

One of the important issues in finance and economics for both scholars and practitioners is to describe the behavior of markets, especially during times of crises. In this paper, we analyze the behavior of some mature and emerging markets with a Tsallis entropy framework that is a non-extensive statistical approach based on non-linear dynamics. During the past decade, this technique has been successfully applied to a considerable number of complex systems such as stock markets in order to describe the non-Gaussian behavior of these systems. In this approach, there is a parameter q, which is a measure of deviation from Gaussianity, that has proved to be a good index for detecting crises. We investigate the behavior of this parameter in different time scales for the market indices. It could be seen that the specified pattern for q differs for mature markets with regard to emerging markets. The findings show the robustness of the stated approach in order to follow the market conditions over time. It is obvious that, in times of crises, q is much greater than in other times. In addition, the response of emerging markets to global events is delayed compared to that of mature markets, and tends to a Gaussian profile on increasing the scale. This approach could be very useful in application to risk and portfolio management in order to detect crises by following the parameter q in different time scales.

Magazine reading and involvement and young adults' sexual health knowledge, efficacy, and behaviors.

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, Jennifer L; Ward, L Monique

2010-07-01

These studies investigate connections between magazine reading and involvement and young people's sexual health knowledge, self-efficacy, intentions, and contraception use. Study 1 assessed sexual health behaviors and magazine reading among 579 undergraduate students (69% were female; 68% were White; M(age) = 19.73). As expected, more frequent reading of mainstream magazines was associated with greater sexual health knowledge, safe-sex self-efficacy, and consistency of using contraception, although results varied across sex and magazine genre. Study 2 replicated and expanded on these findings with a survey of 422 undergraduate students (51% were female; 71% were White; 49% were age 18 or younger), incorporating a more extensive knowledge scale, questions about safe-sex intentions, and measures of magazine involvement. Results suggest that magazine use is associated with positive sexual health outcomes among young people.

Davies, Florence (1995. Introducing Reading. Davies, Florence (1995. Introducing Reading.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sonia Maria Gomes Ferreira

2008-04-01

Full Text Available Arising at a time of unprecedented growth of interest in fostering critical thinking, Introducing Reading offers a clear introduction and thorough account of contemporary developments in the field of reading. While overtly focusing on the special demands of social and human aspects of the reading practice, the issues raised have crucial resonance in the sphere of critical reading. Explicitly addressed to teachers of mother tongue and foreign language contexts, the book claims to elaborate on aspects of reading which have received meager attention to date: individual readers engaged in different real-world reading tasks, the social contexts where such readers engage and interact with texts, and the nature and variety of texts, here regarded as “participants” in the interaction between reader and writer. To this extent, the book successfully reaches the ambitious aim of “socializing and humanizing reading and the teaching of reading” (p. xi. Arising at a time of unprecedented growth of interest in fostering critical thinking, Introducing Reading offers a clear introduction and thorough account of contemporary developments in the field of reading. While overtly focusing on the special demands of social and human aspects of the reading practice, the issues raised have crucial resonance in the sphere of critical reading. Explicitly addressed to teachers of mother tongue and foreign language contexts, the book claims to elaborate on aspects of reading which have received meager attention to date: individual readers engaged in different real-world reading tasks, the social contexts where such readers engage and interact with texts, and the nature and variety of texts, here regarded as “participants” in the interaction between reader and writer. To this extent, the book successfully reaches the ambitious aim of “socializing and humanizing reading and the teaching of reading” (p. xi.

Radiation imaging with optically read out GEM-based detectors

Science.gov (United States)

Brunbauer, F. M.; Lupberger, M.; Oliveri, E.; Resnati, F.; Ropelewski, L.; Streli, C.; Thuiner, P.; van Stenis, M.

2018-02-01

Modern imaging sensors allow for high granularity optical readout of radiation detectors such as MicroPattern Gaseous Detectors (MPGDs). Taking advantage of the high signal amplification factors achievable by MPGD technologies such as Gaseous Electron Multipliers (GEMs), highly sensitive detectors can be realised and employing gas mixtures with strong scintillation yield in the visible wavelength regime, optical readout of such detectors can provide high-resolution event representations. Applications from X-ray imaging to fluoroscopy and tomography profit from the good spatial resolution of optical readout and the possibility to obtain images without the need for extensive reconstruction. Sensitivity to low-energy X-rays and energy resolution permit energy resolved imaging and material distinction in X-ray fluorescence measurements. Additionally, the low material budget of gaseous detectors and the possibility to couple scintillation light to imaging sensors via fibres or mirrors makes optically read out GEMs an ideal candidate for beam monitoring detectors in high energy physics as well as radiotherapy. We present applications and achievements of optically read out GEM-based detectors including high spatial resolution imaging and X-ray fluorescence measurements as an alternative readout approach for MPGDs. A detector concept for low intensity applications such as X-ray crystallography, which maximises detection efficiency with a thick conversion region but mitigates parallax-induced broadening is presented and beam monitoring capabilities of optical readout are explored. Augmenting high resolution 2D projections of particle tracks obtained with optical readout with timing information from fast photon detectors or transparent anodes for charge readout, 3D reconstruction of particle trajectories can be performed and permits the realisation of optically read out time projection chambers. Combining readily available high performance imaging sensors with compatible

Book Clubs in Developmental Reading: Building Reading Comprehension, Fostering Reading Enjoyment, and Engaging Students

Science.gov (United States)

Maldonado, Michele

2012-01-01

The use of book clubs in college developmental reading classes is an effective way to encourage reluctant readers to build and strengthen reading skills, foster reading enjoyment, and engage students. In addition, book clubs build a sense of community within the classroom as the students converse and share their interpretations of the reading…

Reading Comprehension Profiles of High-Functioning Students on the Autism Spectrum: A Grounded Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Williamson, Pamela; Carnahan, Christina R.; Jacobs, Jennifer A.

2012-01-01

Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, this study sought to understand what influences reading comprehension and how meaning is made from text among high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Using a think-aloud procedure, 13 individuals ages 7-13 with ASD read 16 passages at their instructional reading level.…

Motivational reading on education, meaningful reading realisation

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Adriana Qafa

2017-07-01

Full Text Available In this study I will present some ideas on today’s educational practice for motivation, the realization of the meaningful reading. There is a special place for the methodical ranking of the reading process, starting in school. Main requests of this reading, consist of the deep meaning of the subject, exploration of the idea, and other elements of the subject, implementation of the technique’s rules of the expressive reading, such as breathing, voice, diction, intonation, spelling, stoppages, logical emphasizes, emotional expressions, temper, timber, gesticulations, and mimic. There is also highlighted the fact that the used method comes from the pupils’ results and depends on the capability and level of the teacher, from the programming’s scale, the tools that are put into disposition, the age and the level of the pupils, and from the environment that the teacher creates during courses. At the end there are some practical guidelines for the realization of the expressive reading in the literature subject.

Reading intervention with a growth mindset approach improves children’s skills

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Simon Calmar; Nielsen, Helena Skyt

2016-01-01

Laboratory experiments have shown that parents who believe their child’s abilities are fixed engage with their child in unconstructive, performance-oriented ways. We show that children of parents with such “fixed mindsets” have lower reading skills, even after controlling for the child’s previous...

Short-read reading-frame predictors are not created equal: sequence error causes loss of signal

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Trimble William L

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Gene prediction algorithms (or gene callers are an essential tool for analyzing shotgun nucleic acid sequence data. Gene prediction is a ubiquitous step in sequence analysis pipelines; it reduces the volume of data by identifying the most likely reading frame for a fragment, permitting the out-of-frame translations to be ignored. In this study we evaluate five widely used ab initio gene-calling algorithms—FragGeneScan, MetaGeneAnnotator, MetaGeneMark, Orphelia, and Prodigal—for accuracy on short (75–1000 bp fragments containing sequence error from previously published artificial data and “real” metagenomic datasets. Results While gene prediction tools have similar accuracies predicting genes on error-free fragments, in the presence of sequencing errors considerable differences between tools become evident. For error-containing short reads, FragGeneScan finds more prokaryotic coding regions than does MetaGeneAnnotator, MetaGeneMark, Orphelia, or Prodigal. This improved detection of genes in error-containing fragments, however, comes at the cost of much lower (50% specificity and overprediction of genes in noncoding regions. Conclusions Ab initio gene callers offer a significant reduction in the computational burden of annotating individual nucleic acid reads and are used in many metagenomic annotation systems. For predicting reading frames on raw reads, we find the hidden Markov model approach in FragGeneScan is more sensitive than other gene prediction tools, while Prodigal, MGA, and MGM are better suited for higher-quality sequences such as assembled contigs.

Improving reading in the primary grades.

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Duke, Nell K; Block, Meghan K

2012-01-01

Almost fifteen years have passed since the publication of the National Research Council's seminal report Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, which provided research-based recommendations on what could be done to better position students in prekindergarten through third grade for success in grade four and above. This article by Nell Duke and Meghan Block first examines whether specific key recommendations from the report have been implemented in U.S. classrooms. They find that recommendations regarding increased access to kindergarten and greater attention to and improvement of students' word-reading skills have been widely adopted. Others have not. Vocabulary and comprehension, long neglected in the primary grades, still appear to be neglected. Contrary to the report's recommendations, attention to building conceptual and content knowledge in science and social studies has actually decreased in the past fifteen years. In other words, the easier-to-master skills are being attended to, but the broader domains of accomplishment that constitute preparation for comprehension and learning in the later grades--vocabulary knowledge, comprehension strategy use, and conceptual and content knowledge--are being neglected. Near stagnation in fourth-grade students' comprehension achievement is thus unsurprising. The authors then turn to research and reviews of research on improving primary-grade reading published since 1998, when Preventing Reading Difficulties was issued. They discuss several instructional approaches identified as effective in improving word-reading skill, vocabulary and conceptual knowledge, comprehension strategies, and reading outside of school; they discuss advances in interventions for struggling readers, and in whole-school literacy reform. Duke and Block then identify three key obstacles that have prevented widespread adoption of these best practices in teaching reading. The first obstacle is a short-term orientation toward instruction and

Word Reading Efficiency, Text Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension among Chinese Learners of English

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Xiangying; Sawaki, Yasuyo; Sabatini, John

2012-01-01

This study examined the relationship among word reading efficiency, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension for adult English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Data from 185 adult Chinese EFL learners preparing to take the Test-of-English-as-a-Foreign-Language[TM] (TOEFL[R]) were analyzed in this study. The participants completed a…

Gender Gaps in Mathematics, Science and Reading Achievements in Muslim Countries: A Quantile Regression Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Shafiq, M. Najeeb

2013-01-01

Using quantile regression analyses, this study examines gender gaps in mathematics, science, and reading in Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Jordan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Qatar, Tunisia, and Turkey among 15-year-old students. The analyses show that girls in Azerbaijan achieve as well as boys in mathematics and science and overachieve in reading. In Jordan,…

Introducing Intertextuality-Aware Instruction as a Novel Approach of Teaching Reading Passages in EFL Context

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Khaghaninejad, Mohammad Saber

2014-01-01

This study was an attempt to investigate the possible effect of intertextuality-aware instruction of reading passages on a sample of intermediate EFL learners of both genders. First, the intertextuality deployed through the reading passages of the study's course-book was focused inspired by Fairclough's (192) framework in terms of genre, text…

Reduction of CMOS Image Sensor Read Noise to Enable Photon Counting.

Science.gov (United States)

Guidash, Michael; Ma, Jiaju; Vogelsang, Thomas; Endsley, Jay

2016-04-09

Recent activity in photon counting CMOS image sensors (CIS) has been directed to reduction of read noise. Many approaches and methods have been reported. This work is focused on providing sub 1 e(-) read noise by design and operation of the binary and small signal readout of photon counting CIS. Compensation of transfer gate feed-through was used to provide substantially reduced CDS time and source follower (SF) bandwidth. SF read noise was reduced by a factor of 3 with this method. This method can be applied broadly to CIS devices to reduce the read noise for small signals to enable use as a photon counting sensor.

Simultaneously uncovering the patterns of brain regions involved in different story reading subprocesses.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leila Wehbe

Full Text Available Story understanding involves many perceptual and cognitive subprocesses, from perceiving individual words, to parsing sentences, to understanding the relationships among the story characters. We present an integrated computational model of reading that incorporates these and additional subprocesses, simultaneously discovering their fMRI signatures. Our model predicts the fMRI activity associated with reading arbitrary text passages, well enough to distinguish which of two story segments is being read with 74% accuracy. This approach is the first to simultaneously track diverse reading subprocesses during complex story processing and predict the detailed neural representation of diverse story features, ranging from visual word properties to the mention of different story characters and different actions they perform. We construct brain representation maps that replicate many results from a wide range of classical studies that focus each on one aspect of language processing and offer new insights on which type of information is processed by different areas involved in language processing. Additionally, this approach is promising for studying individual differences: it can be used to create single subject maps that may potentially be used to measure reading comprehension and diagnose reading disorders.

Reading Like a Writer, Teaching Like a Reader: Guiding Students towards "Good Reading" in First-Year Composition

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De Piero, Zack Kramer

2017-01-01

This study examined how graduate students in humanities disciplines guide students' reading during their work as teaching assistants (TAs) in first-year (FYC) composition courses. Situated within an independent writing program, the "genre studies" approach to this FYC course is informed by the threshold concepts of the composition…

Literary socialization and reading preferences: Effects of parents, the library, and the school

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kraaykamp, G.L.M.

2003-01-01

In this article, I study the long-term effects of reading socialization in the parental home, the use that is made of the extensive supply of books in the library, and the cultural encouragement that takes place in secondary school. Employing representative data for the Netherlands in 1998 (N=1762),

Literary socialization and reading preferences : Effects of parents, the library, and the school

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kraaykamp, Gerbert

2003-01-01

In this article, I study the long-term effects of reading socialization in the parental home, the use that is made of the extensive supply of books in the library, and the cultural encouragement that takes place in secondary school. Employing representative data for the Netherlands in 1998 (N=1762),

Cincinnati's Bold New Venture: A Unified K-12 Reading/Communication Arts Program.

Science.gov (United States)

Green, Reginald Leon

1989-01-01

Describes a unified reading/communication arts program in the Cincinnati Public School System which uses new basal texts, support materials, and a customized instructional system for each grade level, integrating listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking skills into a unified language approach. Discusses intervention strategies,…

Seeing red: Relearning to read in a case of Balint's Syndrome.

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Rose, Anita; Wilson, Barbara A; Manolov, Rumen; Florschutz, Gerhard

2016-06-18

Balint's Syndrome is a rare condition, often associated with hypoxic brain damage. The major characteristic is an inability to localise objects in space, another is simultanagnosia frequently resulting in reading difficulties. We present RN, a 37 year old woman whose major problem with reading was her inability to recognise individual letters correctly in either lower or upper case. We noted, however, that she was better if the letters were shown in red type. The aims were to determine if RN could relearn letters of the alphabet, investigate whether colour affected her ability to learn, and to explore more specifically whether the red type also helped her to read words. Using a single case experimental ABA design, we first determined that the optimal font for RN was size 16. In the baseline (A) phase, we assessed her ability to read all lower and upper case letters of the alphabet in black ink. In the intervention (B) phase we used font size 16 in red ink and an errorless learning approach to teaching the letters. Sessions ran 5 times per week (20 minutes per session). The intervention was then applied to picture recognition and word reading with four sets of 10 words and corresponding pictures. A consistent difference was noted between initial baseline and intervention. Improvement carried over when we returned to baseline. Using red type and an errorless learning approach enabled RN to re-learn letters of the alphabet and read words she was previously unable to read. This did not however generalise to her everyday life.

Reading Improvement through Art Replicator Manual of Instruction, 3rd Edition

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Corwin, Sylvia K., Ed.

2013-01-01

Reading Improvement Through Art (RITA) program is an interdisciplinary approach to literacy that blends visual art with reading comprehension, evaluated in nine New York City urban high schools. 240 problem readers participating in the pilot program were pre- and post-tested in the Fall 1975 and Spring 1976 semesters. The testing showed the 9th…

Identity Styles: Predictors of Reading and Writing Abilities

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Zohre Mohamadi

2016-09-01

Full Text Available How the individual differences prime different learning process is well addressed in literature. But, what is missing from these analyses is how learners with different identity styles approach reading and writing skills and if different identity styles can predict differentiated language performance. The present study aims at investigating the relationship between identity styles, and reading/writing skills of Iranian intermediate female EFL learners. One the basis of the results of Nelson language proficiency test, 120 participants were selected to participate in this research. Participants' answers to Berzonsky's Identity Style Inventory (ISI3 and reading and writing parts of Preliminary English Test were analyzed. The results indicated that informational and normative identity styles were found to be positively correlated and diffuse-avoidant style was negatively correlated with reading and writing abilities whereas commitment identity didn't bear any significant relationships. The findings also indicated that informational style acted as the best predictor of these skills. Implications for language teachers are suggested.

Developing New Reading Assessments to Promote Beginning Reading in Singapore

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Koh, Kim H.; Paris, Scott G.

2011-01-01

Effective reading instruction and intervention are rooted in effective assessments of children's developing skills in reading. The article aims to describe the development of new reading assessments to help promote beginning reading in Singapore primary schools. We begin with an introduction to the educational landscape and policies before…

Emotional Landscapes of Reading

OpenAIRE

Natalia Samutina

2015-01-01

This paper focuses on fan fiction as a literary experience and especially on fan fiction readers’ receptive strategies. Methodologically, its approach is at the intersection of literary theory, theory of popular culture, and qualitative research into practices of communication within online communities. It presents a general characterization of fan fiction as a type of contemporary reading and writing, drawing upon the influential works by H. Jenkins, A. Dericho, K. Tosenberger, and others. T...

Meeting the requirements of specialists and generalists in Version 3 of the Read Codes: Two illustrative "Case Reports"

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Fiona Sinclair

1997-11-01

Full Text Available The Read Codes have been recognised as the standard for General Practice computing since 1988 and the original 4-byte set continues to be extensively used to record primary health care data. Read Version 3 (the Read Thesaurus is an expanded clinical vocabulary with an enhanced file structure designed to meet the detailed requirements of specialist practitioners and to address some of the limitations of previous versions. A recent phase of integration of the still widely-used 4-byte set has highlighted the need to ensure that the new Thesaurus continues to support generalist requirements.

Developing Teachers' Capacity for Teaching Pupils' Initial Reading ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

DrNneka

that male students performed better on IRMAT than their female counterpart t- calculated 10.80 at ... Key words: Developing, Teachers' Capacity, Teaching, Initial Reading, Multisensory. Approach .... picture that its name starts with the sound.

Reading Speed as a Constraint of Accuracy of Self-Perception of Reading Skill

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Kwon, Heekyung; Linderholm, Tracy

2015-01-01

We hypothesised that college students take reading speed into consideration when evaluating their own reading skill, even if reading speed does not reliably predict actual reading skill. To test this hypothesis, we measured self-perception of reading skill, self-perception of reading speed, actual reading skill and actual reading speed to…

Exploring Students' Reading Profiles to Guide a Reading Intervention Programme

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Boakye, Naomi A. N. Y.

2017-01-01

There have been a number of studies on reading interventions to improve students' reading proficiency, yet the majority of these interventions are undertaken with the assumption that students' reading challenges are obvious and generic in nature. The interventions do not take into consideration the diversity in students' reading backgrounds and…

mpscan: Fast Localisation of Multiple Reads in Genomes

Science.gov (United States)

Rivals, Eric; Salmela, Leena; Kiiskinen, Petteri; Kalsi, Petri; Tarhio, Jorma

With Next Generation Sequencers, sequence based transcriptomic or epigenomic assays yield millions of short sequence reads that need to be mapped back on a reference genome. The upcoming versions of these sequencers promise even higher sequencing capacities; this may turn the read mapping task into a bottleneck for which alternative pattern matching approaches must be experimented. We present an algorithm and its implementation, called mpscan, which uses a sophisticated filtration scheme to match a set of patterns/reads exactly on a sequence. mpscan can search for millions of reads in a single pass through the genome without indexing its sequence. Moreover, we show that mpscan offers an optimal average time complexity, which is sublinear in the text length, meaning that it does not need to examine all sequence positions. Comparisons with BLAT-like tools and with six specialised read mapping programs (like bowtie or zoom) demonstrate that mpscan also is the fastest algorithm in practice for exact matching. Our accuracy and scalability comparisons reveal that some tools are inappropriate for read mapping. Moreover, we provide evidence suggesting that exact matching may be a valuable solution in some read mapping applications. As most read mapping programs somehow rely on exact matching procedures to perform approximate pattern mapping, the filtration scheme we experimented may reveal useful in the design of future algorithms. The absence of genome index gives mpscan its low memory requirement and flexibility that let it run on a desktop computer and avoids a time-consuming genome preprocessing.

Multi-period natural gas market modeling Applications, stochastic extensions and solution approaches

Science.gov (United States)

Egging, Rudolf Gerardus

This dissertation develops deterministic and stochastic multi-period mixed complementarity problems (MCP) for the global natural gas market, as well as solution approaches for large-scale stochastic MCP. The deterministic model is unique in the combination of the level of detail of the actors in the natural gas markets and the transport options, the detailed regional and global coverage, the multi-period approach with endogenous capacity expansions for transportation and storage infrastructure, the seasonal variation in demand and the representation of market power according to Nash-Cournot theory. The model is applied to several scenarios for the natural gas market that cover the formation of a cartel by the members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a low availability of unconventional gas in the United States, and cost reductions in long-distance gas transportation. 1 The results provide insights in how different regions are affected by various developments, in terms of production, consumption, traded volumes, prices and profits of market participants. The stochastic MCP is developed and applied to a global natural gas market problem with four scenarios for a time horizon until 2050 with nineteen regions and containing 78,768 variables. The scenarios vary in the possibility of a gas market cartel formation and varying depletion rates of gas reserves in the major gas importing regions. Outcomes for hedging decisions of market participants show some significant shifts in the timing and location of infrastructure investments, thereby affecting local market situations. A first application of Benders decomposition (BD) is presented to solve a large-scale stochastic MCP for the global gas market with many hundreds of first-stage capacity expansion variables and market players exerting various levels of market power. The largest problem solved successfully using BD contained 47,373 variables of which 763 first-stage variables, however using BD did not result in

Enhancing the Interpretive Reading and Analytical Writing of Mainstreamed English Learners in Secondary School: Results from a Randomized Field Trial Using a Cognitive Strategies Approach

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Olson, Carol Booth; Kim, James S.; Scarcella, Robin; Kramer, Jason; Pearson, Matthew; van Dyk, David A.; Collins, Penny; Land, Robert E.

2012-01-01

In this study, 72 secondary English teachers from the Santa Ana Unified School District were randomly assigned to participate in the Pathway Project, a cognitive strategies approach to teaching interpretive reading and analytical writing, or to a control condition involving typical district training focusing on teaching content from the textbook.…

Graphic organizers and their effects on the reading comprehension of students with LD: a synthesis of research.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Ae-Hwa; Vaughn, Sharon; Wanzek, Jeanne; Wei, Shangjin

2004-01-01

Previous research studies examining the effects of graphic organizers on reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities (LD) are reviewed. An extensive search of the professional literature between 1963 and June 2001 yielded a total of 21 group design intervention studies that met the criteria for inclusion in the synthesis. Using graphic organizers (i.e., semantic organizers, framed outlines, cognitive maps with and without a mnemonic) was associated with improved reading comprehension overall for students with LD. Compared to standardized reading measures, researcher-developed comprehension measures were associated with higher effect sizes. Initial gains demonstrated when using graphic organizers were not revealed during later comprehension tasks or on new comprehension tasks.

An Annotated Bibliography of the Literature Dealing with the Importance of Integrating a Children's Literature Program into the Elementary Language Arts/Reading Curriculum.

Science.gov (United States)

Olson, Nancy L. Galles

Noting the general agreement among reading authorities that one of the most effective methods of encouraging children to read comes from exposing them to children's literature and related activities, this paper presents an extensive literature review of materials dealing with the subject. Following an introductory section that details the goals…

Connected text reading and differences in text reading fluency in adult readers.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sebastian Wallot

Full Text Available The process of connected text reading has received very little attention in contemporary cognitive psychology. This lack of attention is in parts due to a research tradition that emphasizes the role of basic lexical constituents, which can be studied in isolated words or sentences. However, this lack of attention is in parts also due to the lack of statistical analysis techniques, which accommodate interdependent time series. In this study, we investigate text reading performance with traditional and nonlinear analysis techniques and show how outcomes from multiple analyses can used to create a more detailed picture of the process of text reading. Specifically, we investigate reading performance of groups of literate adult readers that differ in reading fluency during a self-paced text reading task. Our results indicate that classical metrics of reading (such as word frequency do not capture text reading very well, and that classical measures of reading fluency (such as average reading time distinguish relatively poorly between participant groups. Nonlinear analyses of distribution tails and reading time fluctuations provide more fine-grained information about the reading process and reading fluency.

The role of speech prosody and text reading prosody in children's reading comprehension.

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Veenendaal, Nathalie J; Groen, Margriet A; Verhoeven, Ludo

2014-12-01

Text reading prosody has been associated with reading comprehension. However, text reading prosody is a reading-dependent measure that relies heavily on decoding skills. Investigation of the contribution of speech prosody - which is independent from reading skills - in addition to text reading prosody, to reading comprehension could provide more insight into the general role of prosody in reading comprehension. The current study investigates how much variance in reading comprehension scores is explained by speech prosody and text reading prosody, after controlling for decoding, vocabulary, and syntactic awareness. A battery of reading and language assessments was performed by 106 Dutch fourth-grade primary school children. Speech prosody was assessed using a storytelling task and text reading prosody by oral text reading performance. Decoding skills, vocabulary, syntactic awareness, and reading comprehension were assessed using standardized tests. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that text reading prosody explained 6% of variance and that speech prosody explained 8% of variance in reading comprehension scores, after controlling for decoding, vocabulary, and syntactic awareness. Phrasing was the significant factor in both speech and text reading. When added in consecutive order, phrasing in speech added 5% variance to phrasing in reading. In contrast, phrasing in reading added only 3% variance to phrasing in speech. The variance that speech prosody explained in reading comprehension scores should not be neglected. Speech prosody seems to facilitate the construction of meaning in written language. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

Early Mandarin Literacy in a Class-created Reading Library

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Reed Riggs

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This article explores methods for creating an extensive reading (ER library during the first weeks of language instruction, illustrated here in a college Mandarin course. Data include student-created texts, video transcripts of students reading in groups, field notes, and a student perceptions survey. Taken together the data provide a snapshot of how students in a beginning-level university Mandarin course can utilize Internet resources to create and use a personalized ER library. ER has been shown in previous research to enrich known words (Waring & Takaki, 2003, and provide opportunities for early literacy in languages that use nonalphabetic scripts like Japanese (Hitosugi & Day, 2004. Mandarin texts feature Chinese characters, which exhibit a low reliability in sound-meaning-visual associations, effectively blocking learners from sounding out unfamiliar words and clearly identifying meaning (Everson et al., 2016. The data here show how learners were able to connect prior knowledge from their own culture to new communicative situations in the form of printed comic books to read in class in small groups. Learners were found to connect understandings between their own culture and the target culture, focusing particularly on cultural similarities.

Genetic and environmental etiologies of reading difficulties: DeFries-Fulker analysis of reading performance data from twin pairs and their nontwin siblings

OpenAIRE

Astrom, Raven L.; Wadsworth, Sally J.; Olson, Richard K.; Willcutt, Erik G.; DeFries, John C.

2012-01-01

Reading performance data from 254 pairs of identical (MZ) and 420 pairs of fraternal (DZ) twins, 8.0 to 20.0 years of age, were subjected to multiple regression analyses. An extension of the DeFries-Fulker (DF) analysis (DeFries & Fulker, 1985, 1988) that facilitated inclusion of data from 303 of their nontwin siblings was employed. In addition to providing estimates of heritability, this analysis yields a test of the difference between shared environmental influences for twins versus sibling...

Applications and extensions of degradation modeling

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hsu, F.; Subudhi, M.; Samanta, P.K.; Vesely, W.E.

1991-01-01

Component degradation modeling being developed to understand the aging process can have many applications with potential advantages. Previous work has focused on developing the basic concepts and mathematical development of a simple degradation model. Using this simple model, times of degradations and failures occurrences were analyzed for standby components to detect indications of aging and to infer the effectiveness of maintenance in preventing age-related degradations from transforming to failures. Degradation modeling approaches can have broader applications in aging studies and in this paper, we discuss some of the extensions and applications of degradation modeling. The application and extension of degradation modeling approaches, presented in this paper, cover two aspects: (1) application to a continuously operating component, and (2) extension of the approach to analyze degradation-failure rate relationship. The application of the modeling approach to a continuously operating component (namely, air compressors) shows the usefulness of this approach in studying aging effects and the role of maintenance in this type component. In this case, aging effects in air compressors are demonstrated by the increase in both the degradation and failure rate and the faster increase in the failure rate compared to the degradation rate shows the ineffectiveness of the existing maintenance practices. Degradation-failure rate relationship was analyzed using data from residual heat removal system pumps. A simple linear model with a time-lag between these two parameters was studied. The application in this case showed a time-lag of 2 years for degradations to affect failure occurrences. 2 refs

Applications and extensions of degradation modeling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hsu, F.; Subudhi, M.; Samanta, P.K. [Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States); Vesely, W.E. [Science Applications International Corp., Columbus, OH (United States)

1991-12-31

Component degradation modeling being developed to understand the aging process can have many applications with potential advantages. Previous work has focused on developing the basic concepts and mathematical development of a simple degradation model. Using this simple model, times of degradations and failures occurrences were analyzed for standby components to detect indications of aging and to infer the effectiveness of maintenance in preventing age-related degradations from transforming to failures. Degradation modeling approaches can have broader applications in aging studies and in this paper, we discuss some of the extensions and applications of degradation modeling. The application and extension of degradation modeling approaches, presented in this paper, cover two aspects: (1) application to a continuously operating component, and (2) extension of the approach to analyze degradation-failure rate relationship. The application of the modeling approach to a continuously operating component (namely, air compressors) shows the usefulness of this approach in studying aging effects and the role of maintenance in this type component. In this case, aging effects in air compressors are demonstrated by the increase in both the degradation and failure rate and the faster increase in the failure rate compared to the degradation rate shows the ineffectiveness of the existing maintenance practices. Degradation-failure rate relationship was analyzed using data from residual heat removal system pumps. A simple linear model with a time-lag between these two parameters was studied. The application in this case showed a time-lag of 2 years for degradations to affect failure occurrences. 2 refs.

Applications and extensions of degradation modeling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hsu, F.; Subudhi, M.; Samanta, P.K. (Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)); Vesely, W.E. (Science Applications International Corp., Columbus, OH (United States))

1991-01-01

Component degradation modeling being developed to understand the aging process can have many applications with potential advantages. Previous work has focused on developing the basic concepts and mathematical development of a simple degradation model. Using this simple model, times of degradations and failures occurrences were analyzed for standby components to detect indications of aging and to infer the effectiveness of maintenance in preventing age-related degradations from transforming to failures. Degradation modeling approaches can have broader applications in aging studies and in this paper, we discuss some of the extensions and applications of degradation modeling. The application and extension of degradation modeling approaches, presented in this paper, cover two aspects: (1) application to a continuously operating component, and (2) extension of the approach to analyze degradation-failure rate relationship. The application of the modeling approach to a continuously operating component (namely, air compressors) shows the usefulness of this approach in studying aging effects and the role of maintenance in this type component. In this case, aging effects in air compressors are demonstrated by the increase in both the degradation and failure rate and the faster increase in the failure rate compared to the degradation rate shows the ineffectiveness of the existing maintenance practices. Degradation-failure rate relationship was analyzed using data from residual heat removal system pumps. A simple linear model with a time-lag between these two parameters was studied. The application in this case showed a time-lag of 2 years for degradations to affect failure occurrences. 2 refs.

100 articles every ecologist should read.

Science.gov (United States)

Courchamp, Franck; Bradshaw, Corey J A

2018-02-01

Reading scientific articles is a valuable and major part of the activity of scientists. Yet, with the upsurge of currently available articles and the increasing specialization of scientists, it becomes difficult to identify, let alone read, important papers covering topics not directly related to one's own specific field of research, or that are older than a few years. Our objective was to propose a list of seminal papers deemed to be of major importance in ecology, thus providing a general 'must-read' list for any new ecologist, regardless of particular topic or expertise. We generated a list of 544 papers proposed by 147 ecology experts (journal editorial members) and subsequently ranked via random-sample voting by 368 of 665 contacted ecology experts, covering 6 article types, 6 approaches and 17 fields. Most of the recommended papers were not published in the highest-ranking journals, nor did they have the highest number of mean annual citations. The articles proposed through the collective recommendation of several hundred experienced researchers probably do not represent an 'ultimate', invariant list, but they certainly contain many high-quality articles that are undoubtedly worth reading-regardless of the specific field of interest in ecology-to foster the understanding, knowledge and inspiration of early-career scientists.

The Assessment of Reading Comprehension Difficulties for Reading Intervention

Science.gov (United States)

Woolley, Gary

2008-01-01

There are many environmental and personal factors that contribute to reading success. Reading comprehension is a complex interaction of language, sensory perception, memory, and motivational aspects. However, most existing assessment tools have not adequately reflected the complex nature of reading comprehension. Good assessment requires a…

The Role of Speech Prosody and Text Reading Prosody in Children's Reading Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Veenendaal, Nathalie J.; Groen, Margriet A.; Verhoeven, Ludo

2014-01-01

Background: Text reading prosody has been associated with reading comprehension. However, text reading prosody is a reading-dependent measure that relies heavily on decoding skills. Investigation of the contribution of speech prosody--which is independent from reading skills--in addition to text reading prosody, to reading comprehension could…

To read or not to read

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mol, Suzanne Elizabeth

2010-01-01

There is a widely held belief that reading (story)books makes us smarter and helps promote success in life. Does scientific evidence support this notion? The three meta-analyses in this thesis comprise 146 studies between 1988 and 2010 (N=10,308 participants) that addressed the role of book reading

The Impact of Online Autonomous Learning on EFL Students' Reading Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Hui-Fang; Chen, Yen-Yu

2018-01-01

With the rapid growth of technology, many language acquisition approaches have been added to computer-assisted language learning applications. Thus, this study investigated the impact of online autonomous learning on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' reading ability. Sixty-five students from two reading classes at One University in…

Developing Historical Reading and Writing with Adolescent Readers: Effects on Student Learning

Science.gov (United States)

De La Paz, Susan; Felton, Mark; Monte-Sano, Chauncey; Croninger, Robert; Jackson, Cara; Deogracias, Jeehye Shim; Hoffman, Benjamin Polk

2014-01-01

In this study, the effects of a disciplinary reading and writing curriculum intervention with professional development are shared. We share our instructional approach and provide writing outcomes for struggling adolescent readers who read at or below basic proficiency levels, as well as writing outcomes for proficient and advanced readers.…

Improving Behavior by Using Multicomponent Self-Monitoring within a Targeted Reading Intervention

Science.gov (United States)

Bruhn, Allison; Watt, Sarah

2012-01-01

Many researchers have documented the interrelatedness of reading and behavior (McIntosh, Sadler, & Brown, 2012). Thus, research examining the best way to intervene with students who exhibit problems in both skill sets is merited. Recently, taking an integrated approach to reading and behavioral intervention has been suggested (Mooney, Ryan, Uhing,…

About the school readings and the new educational demands

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aitana Martos García

2017-05-01

Full Text Available This article reviews from a critical point of view the State of the art on the school readings, from their theoretical assumptions to their didactic instrumentation and the views of teachers... In this regard, are reviewed the approaches of different paradigms and authors, whose references and contributions are contrasted with the current cultural crossroads and the perceptions of students and teachers. Classical reading and writing are overwhelmed by concepts such as multialfabetizacion, transmedia, fan fiction, etc, and the school is which should facilitate models integrators and eclectic readings. Also make converge the media and encourage the participation (Jenkins, and all of this without losing the critical literacy as a backdrop.

Teachers’ beliefs about reading and use of reading strategies

OpenAIRE

VASILIKA RRAKU

2014-01-01

The aim of this article is to place the focus on teachers’ beliefs about reading and reading strategies to the purpose of emphasizing the im portance of reading strategies in the reading process. The method of study is analytic analysis of teachers’ beliefs obtained through ques tionnaires delivered to 18 English language teachers of elementary, secondary and high level education in the region of Saranda in lbania. The results of the study pointed to a great concordance between teach ers’ bel...

Effects of Strategy Instruction in an EFL Reading Comprehension Course: A Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sergio Lopera Medina

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Strategy instruction is useful in teaching contexts. This paper examines the effects of strategy instruction in an EFL reading comprehension course carried out with 26 undergraduate students at a Colombian university. As a research method, a case study was implemented. There were three instruments with which to collect data: reading comprehension tests, teacher's field notes and self-reflection in class at the strategy instruction phase, and a learning perception questionnaire. Given that students improved in reading comprehension, it would seem that reading strategy instruction is indeed very useful. Also, it was noted that when students applied reading strategies, they became more self-confident and this in turn enhanced their motivation. Finally, when students applied the reading strategy approach, the use of dictionaries decreased considerably.

In silico serotyping of E. coli from short read data identifies limited novel O-loci but extensive diversity of O:H serotype combinations within and between pathogenic lineages.

Science.gov (United States)

Ingle, Danielle J; Valcanis, Mary; Kuzevski, Alex; Tauschek, Marija; Inouye, Michael; Stinear, Tim; Levine, Myron M; Robins-Browne, Roy M; Holt, Kathryn E

2016-07-01

The lipopolysaccharide (O) and flagellar (H) surface antigens of Escherichia coli are targets for serotyping that have traditionally been used to identify pathogenic lineages. These surface antigens are important for the survival of E. coli within mammalian hosts. However, traditional serotyping has several limitations, and public health reference laboratories are increasingly moving towards whole genome sequencing (WGS) to characterize bacterial isolates. Here we present a method to rapidly and accurately serotype E. coli isolates from raw, short read WGS data. Our approach bypasses the need for de novo genome assembly by directly screening WGS reads against a curated database of alleles linked to known and novel E. coli O-groups and H-types (the EcOH database) using the software package srst2. We validated the approach by comparing in silico results for 197 enteropathogenic E. coli isolates with those obtained by serological phenotyping in an independent laboratory. We then demonstrated the utility of our method to characterize isolates in public health and clinical settings, and to explore the genetic diversity of >1500 E. coli genomes from multiple sources. Importantly, we showed that transfer of O- and H-antigen loci between E. coli chromosomal backbones is common, with little evidence of constraints by host or pathotype, suggesting that E. coli ' strain space' may be virtually unlimited, even within specific pathotypes. Our findings show that serotyping is most useful when used in combination with strain genotyping to characterize microevolution events within an inferred population structure.

Effect of geotropism on instrument readings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rolph, James T.

2006-01-01

A review of gravity's effect on instrument readings, also referred to as geotropism. In this essay a review of meter movement construction and the effect are reviewed as it applies to portable radiation instruments. Reference to the three ANSI standards and their requirements are reviewed. An alternate approach to test for the effects is offered

Multicultural Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Veltze, Linda

2004-01-01

Multicultural reading advocates believe in the power of literature to transform and to change people's lives. They take seriously the arguments that racism and prejudice can be lessened through multicultural reading, and also that children from undervalued societal groups who read books that depict people like themselves in a positive light will…

Examining Associations between Reading Motivation and Inference Generation beyond Reading Comprehension Skill

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Clinton, Virginia

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between reading motivation and inference generation while reading. Undergraduate participants (N = 69) read two science articles while thinking aloud, completed a standardized reading comprehension assessment, and self reported their habitual reading motivation. Findings indicate that…

The Think-Aloud Approach: A Promising Tool for Online Reading Comprehension

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Carioli, Stefania; Peru, Andrea

2016-01-01

Despite its unquestionable interest from a theoretical and practical point of view, so far there has been little research on online reading and there is a lack of attention paid to this topic in most European educational institutions. In particular, primary and secondary school teachers are not adequately trained on how and when to intervene to…

Reading Amount as a Mediator of the Effects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reading Motivation on Reading Comprehension

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Schaffner, Ellen; Schiefele, Ulrich; Ulferts, Hannah

2013-01-01

This study examined the role of reading amount as a mediator of the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation on higher order reading comprehension (comprised of paragraph-and passage-level comprehension) in a sample of 159 fifth-grade elementary students. A positive association between intrinsic reading motivation and reading amount…

The relationship between different measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension in second-grade students who evidence different oral reading fluency difficulties.

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Wise, Justin C; Sevcik, Rose A; Morris, Robin D; Lovett, Maureen W; Wolf, Maryanne; Kuhn, Melanie; Meisinger, Beth; Schwanenflugel, Paula

2010-07-01

The purpose of this study was to examine whether different measures of oral reading fluency relate differentially to reading comprehension performance in two samples of second-grade students: (a) students who evidenced difficulties with nonsense-word oral reading fluency, real-word oral reading fluency, and oral reading fluency of connected text (ORFD), and (b) students who evidenced difficulties only with oral reading fluency of connected text (CTD). Participants (ORFD, n = 146 and CTD, n = 949) were second-grade students who were recruited for participation in different reading intervention studies. Data analyzed were from measures of nonsense-word oral reading fluency, real-word oral reading fluency, oral reading fluency of connected text, and reading comprehension that were collected at the pre-intervention time point. Correlational and path analyses indicated that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension performance in both samples and across average and poor reading comprehension abilities. Results of this study indicate that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension and suggest that real-word oral reading fluency may be an efficient method for identifying potential reading comprehension difficulties.

Efficient alignment of pyrosequencing reads for re-sequencing applications

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Russo Luis MS

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Over the past few years, new massively parallel DNA sequencing technologies have emerged. These platforms generate massive amounts of data per run, greatly reducing the cost of DNA sequencing. However, these techniques also raise important computational difficulties mostly due to the huge volume of data produced, but also because of some of their specific characteristics such as read length and sequencing errors. Among the most critical problems is that of efficiently and accurately mapping reads to a reference genome in the context of re-sequencing projects. Results We present an efficient method for the local alignment of pyrosequencing reads produced by the GS FLX (454 system against a reference sequence. Our approach explores the characteristics of the data in these re-sequencing applications and uses state of the art indexing techniques combined with a flexible seed-based approach, leading to a fast and accurate algorithm which needs very little user parameterization. An evaluation performed using real and simulated data shows that our proposed method outperforms a number of mainstream tools on the quantity and quality of successful alignments, as well as on the execution time. Conclusions The proposed methodology was implemented in a software tool called TAPyR--Tool for the Alignment of Pyrosequencing Reads--which is publicly available from http://www.tapyr.net.

Musical Tale as a Reading Comprehension Resource in the Classroom

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Lucía Martínez Vázquez

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Reading comprehension is a complex process, whose teaching involves multiple factors, as highlighted by Psychology, Didactics of languages, and others disciplines. Nevertheless, theoretical frameworks need to be applied by means of innovative practices and resources. The aim of this work is to present an innovation implemented in 2016-2017 in the third year of primary school, in the frame of an action-research, with the objective of reinforcing the learning of reading. In order to cope whit the comprehension difficulties involved in attention and concentration abilities, a didactic intervention was designed with the musical tale as a resource. Different approaches to this sort of text, integrated in diverse activities, facilitated the learning of active listening of tales, expressing reading, and guided the attention of readers to metacognitive strategies. The experience allows better identify some difficulties in the reading process, and prove the usefulness of the musical tale, as a meaningful resource to support the teaching and learning of reading.

Reading motivation, reading amount, and text comprehension in deaf and hearing adults.

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Parault, Susan J; Williams, Heather M

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the variables of reading motivation, reading amount, and text comprehension in deaf and hearing adults. Research has shown that less than 50% of deaf students leave high school reading at or above a fourth-grade level (Allen, 1994). Our question is, how does this affect the levels of reading motivation and amount of reading in which deaf adults engage? Assessments of 30 hearing and 24 deaf adults showed that deaf participants reported significantly higher levels of reading motivation despite having been found to read at less than a sixth-grade level. No significant difference in the amount of reading between hearing and deaf adults was found. Amount of reading for personal reasons was found to be the best predictor of text comprehension in the deaf participants, and intrinsic motivation was found to be the best predictor of amount of reading in the deaf participants.

An investigation of Chinese university EFL learner’s foreign language reading anxiety, reading strategy use and reading comprehension performance

OpenAIRE

Zhongshe Lu; Meihua Liu

2015-01-01

The present study explored the interrelations between foreign language (FL) reading anxiety, FL reading strategy use and their interactive effect on FL reading comprehension performance at the tertiary level in China. Analyses of the survey data collected from 1702 university students yielded the following results: (a) Both Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) and Foreign Language Reading Strategy Use Scale (FLRSUS) had important subcomponents, (b) more than half of the stu...

Neural Signatures of the Reading-Writing Connection: Greater Involvement of Writing in Chinese Reading than English Reading.

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Cao, Fan; Perfetti, Charles A

2016-01-01

Research on cross-linguistic comparisons of the neural correlates of reading has consistently found that the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) is more involved in Chinese than in English. However, there is a lack of consensus on the interpretation of the language difference. Because this region has been found to be involved in writing, we hypothesize that reading Chinese characters involves this writing region to a greater degree because Chinese speakers learn to read by repeatedly writing the characters. To test this hypothesis, we recruited English L1 learners of Chinese, who performed a reading task and a writing task in each language. The English L1 sample had learned some Chinese characters through character-writing and others through phonological learning, allowing a test of writing-on-reading effect. We found that the left MFG was more activated in Chinese than English regardless of task, and more activated in writing than in reading regardless of language. Furthermore, we found that this region was more activated for reading Chinese characters learned by character-writing than those learned by phonological learning. A major conclusion is that writing regions are also activated in reading, and that this reading-writing connection is modulated by the learning experience. We replicated the main findings in a group of native Chinese speakers, which excluded the possibility that the language differences observed in the English L1 participants were due to different language proficiency level.

Neural Signatures of the Reading-Writing Connection: Greater Involvement of Writing in Chinese Reading than English Reading.

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Fan Cao

Full Text Available Research on cross-linguistic comparisons of the neural correlates of reading has consistently found that the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG is more involved in Chinese than in English. However, there is a lack of consensus on the interpretation of the language difference. Because this region has been found to be involved in writing, we hypothesize that reading Chinese characters involves this writing region to a greater degree because Chinese speakers learn to read by repeatedly writing the characters. To test this hypothesis, we recruited English L1 learners of Chinese, who performed a reading task and a writing task in each language. The English L1 sample had learned some Chinese characters through character-writing and others through phonological learning, allowing a test of writing-on-reading effect. We found that the left MFG was more activated in Chinese than English regardless of task, and more activated in writing than in reading regardless of language. Furthermore, we found that this region was more activated for reading Chinese characters learned by character-writing than those learned by phonological learning. A major conclusion is that writing regions are also activated in reading, and that this reading-writing connection is modulated by the learning experience. We replicated the main findings in a group of native Chinese speakers, which excluded the possibility that the language differences observed in the English L1 participants were due to different language proficiency level.

Territorial perspective of agricultural extension policies in Colombia

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Molina Juan Patricio

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This article presents a historic perspective of agricultural extension in Colombia and highlights its scope in relationship to regional development. Four periods are identified, which show that policies have evolved towards a territorial and decentralized agricultural extension. However, this trend has not been consolidated in recent years. It is suggested that Colombia should recover an approach of agricultural extension that integrates the productive dimension with a territorial perspective.

A Mixed-Methods Approach to Investigating First- and Second-Language Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition through the Reading of Fiction

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Reynolds, Barry Lee

2015-01-01

Adult English-L1 (n = 20) and English-L2 (n = 32) experimental groups were given a novel containing nonce words to read within two weeks to investigate whether the reading of fiction can induce a state of incidental vocabulary acquisition. After reading, an unexpected meaning recall translation assessment measuring acquisition of 49 target nonce…

Investigating the Effects of Group Investigation (GI and Cooperative Integrated Reading and Comprehension (CIRC as the Cooperative Learning Techniques on Learner's Reading Comprehension

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Mohammad Amin Karafkan

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Cooperative learning consists of some techniques for helping students work together more effectively. This study investigated the effects of Group Investigation (GI and Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC as cooperative learning techniques on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension at an intermediate level. The participants of the study were 207 male students who studied at an intermediate level at ILI. The participants were randomly assigned into three equal groups: one control group and two experimental groups. The control group was instructed via conventional technique following an individualistic instructional approach. One experimental group received GI technique. The other experimental group received CIRC technique. The findings showed that there was a meaningful difference between the mean of the reading comprehension score of GI experimental group and CRIC experimental group. CRIC technique is more effective than GI technique in enhancing the reading comprehension test scores of students.

GENDER GENEALOGY OF READING AS CULTURAL PRACTICE

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N. Yu. Kryvda

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose. The article is devoted to the cultural aspect of texts using in European culture. The paper found out methodological basis of correctly interpreting the term "practice" in the philosophical and sociological discourses. In the first case the concept reveals human nature; appealing to the field of ethics and intersubjective interactions. In sociological approach the term practice is contrasted to institutional life. It seems to be an organic; vital relevance of actions for contrast to the mechanically regulated community life. Methodology. The paper considered the typology of human intellectual conditions according to Kant’s divided into pure and practical reason. The last one directs action-willed individual efforts so as to meet the universal relevance and ethical coherence. Gottlieb Fichte interpreted practice reason as the way to combine intellectual intentions and material conditions of human being. G. W. F. Hegel enriched the concept with terms of "objectification" and "alienation” of labour. Karl Marx formulated the main features of activity approach to the human nature exploring. In sociological discourse the term practice is opposed to mechanically done actions (according to institutional normativity. Given the philosophical and sociological methodological contexts the reading is studied as activity that aimed emotional and volitional contact with sense. Originality. The paper analysed the genealogy of reading practices. There were selected two types of text perception – rapid "masculine" and prudent "women's" reading. Women salon environment of the XVIII-th century capitalistic Europe was the main condition for the forming of literary-aware public. The authors analysed the process of reading of the text-as-satisfaction and text-as-pleasure (R. Barthes. The work presents the overview of classical studies of sociocultural field: Thorstein Veblen; Vladimir Toporov; Rolan Barthes and contemporary researchers such as T. Markova

Pupil's motivation in the 3. grades for required reading and The Reading Badge

OpenAIRE

Logar, Renata

2013-01-01

Reading is extremely important for pupils and their development. The pupil with reading habits riches his vocabulary and gaining knowledge. On the other hand the pupil through reading entry into the world of imagination and stories. Major role in motivating students to read have parents and teachers. In this graduation thesis I was interested in how third grade teachers motivate their pupils to read. In doing so, I was focused mainly to reading for required reading and The Reading Badge. ...

COLLABORATIVE STRATEGIC READING IMPLEMENTATION TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION

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Desy Olivia Riani

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This collaborative action research is aimed to find out whether or not the implementation of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR improves students' reading comprehension and also to identify students' attitude towards the implementation of CSR. CSR is reading strategy that employs four strategies namely Preview, Click and Clunk, Get the Gist and Wrap Up during students’ cooperative learning. A class of eleventh grade students of a public senior high school in Majalengka, West Java, Indonesia is participated as the participant of the study. The required data were collected through the use of questionnaire, observation checklist, and reading test. The data from the questionnaire indicated that 82% students had positive attitude toward the implementation of CSR. They feel that CSR improves their motivation in learning English and CSR brings more fun to the process of learning. Moreover, it was found from observation data that the students were actively participated during CSR implementation and they were motivated when comprehending a text by means CSR strategy. Finally, the study proved that CSR improved students’ reading comprehension. Students’ mean score of reading test in the beginning of the study was 67, meanwhile, after applying CSR as reading strategy, their mean scores improved to 88.

Iowa City Reads! The Reading Event Worth Shouting About.

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Donham van Deusen, Jean; Langhorne, Mary Jo

1997-01-01

Describes the Community Reading Month (CRM) initiative in Iowa City, Iowa; its goals are to promote the value of reading and to build a sense of community. Topics include the development of CRM, increased reading scores of Iowa City's elementary school students, activities for people of all ages, and planning and evaluation. (AEF)

Improving readability through extractive summarization for learners with reading difficulties

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K. Nandhini

2013-11-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of extractive summarization approach to assist the learners with reading difficulties. As existing summarization approaches inherently assign more weights to the important sentences, our approach predicts the summary sentences that are important as well as readable to the target audience with good accuracy. We used supervised machine learning technique for summary extraction of science and social subjects in the educational text. Various independent features from the existing literature for predicting important sentences and proposed learner dependent features for predicting readable sentences are extracted from texts and are used for automatic classification. We performed both extrinsic and intrinsic evaluation on this approach and the intrinsic evaluation is carried out using F-measure and readability analysis. The extrinsic evaluation comprises of learner feedback using likert scale and the effect of assistive summary on improving readability for learners’ with reading difficulty using ANOVA. The results show significant improvement in readability for the target audience using assistive summary.

Orton-Gillingham Methodology for Students with Reading Disabilities: 30 Years of Case Law

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Rose, Tessie E.; Zirkel, Perry

2007-01-01

Although numerous studies have investigated autism methodology case law, few studies have investigated case law regarding reading methodology, particularly the Orton-Gillingham approach, for students with reading disabilities. We provide the results of a systematic case analysis of all published Orton-Gillingham decisions from the original passage…

Augmented Reality Game-Based Learning: Enriching Students' Experience during Reading Comprehension Activities

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Tobar-Muñoz, Hendrys; Baldiris, Silvia; Fabregat, Ramon

2017-01-01

Program for International Student Assessment results indicate that while reading comprehension needs to be promoted, teachers are struggling to find ways to motivate students to do reading comprehension activities and although technology-enhanced learning approaches are entering the classroom, researchers are still experimenting with them to…

Reading Self-Efficacy Predicts Word Reading But Not Comprehension in Both Girls and Boys.

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Carroll, Julia M; Fox, Amy C

2016-01-01

The relationship between cognitive skills and reading has been well-established. However, the role of motivational factors such as self-efficacy in reading progress is less clear. In particular, it is not clear how self-efficacy relates to word level reading versus comprehension, and whether this differs in boys and girls. This study examines the relationship between self-efficacy, word reading and reading comprehension across the range of reading abilities after controlling for reading-related cognitive factors. One hundred and seventy nine children (86 males and 93 females) between 8 and 11 years old completed a self-report measure of reading self-efficacy together with measures of reading comprehension and word reading, working memory, auditory short-term memory, phonological awareness, and vocabulary. Boys and girls showed similar levels of attainment and reading self-efficacy. Reading self-efficacy was associated with word reading, but not with reading comprehension in either boys or girls. It is argued that this may reflect important differences between reading self-efficacy and more general measures of reading motivation and engagement. Reading self-efficacy is an element of reading motivation that is closely associated with a child's perceived attainments in reading and is less susceptible to the gender differences seen in broader measures.

Reading Self-Efficacy Predicts Word Reading But Not Comprehension in Both Girls and Boys

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Carroll, Julia M.; Fox, Amy C.

2017-01-01

The relationship between cognitive skills and reading has been well-established. However, the role of motivational factors such as self-efficacy in reading progress is less clear. In particular, it is not clear how self-efficacy relates to word level reading versus comprehension, and whether this differs in boys and girls. This study examines the relationship between self-efficacy, word reading and reading comprehension across the range of reading abilities after controlling for reading-related cognitive factors. One hundred and seventy nine children (86 males and 93 females) between 8 and 11 years old completed a self-report measure of reading self-efficacy together with measures of reading comprehension and word reading, working memory, auditory short-term memory, phonological awareness, and vocabulary. Boys and girls showed similar levels of attainment and reading self-efficacy. Reading self-efficacy was associated with word reading, but not with reading comprehension in either boys or girls. It is argued that this may reflect important differences between reading self-efficacy and more general measures of reading motivation and engagement. Reading self-efficacy is an element of reading motivation that is closely associated with a child’s perceived attainments in reading and is less susceptible to the gender differences seen in broader measures. PMID:28144223

Metacognitive Reading Strategies, Motivation, and Reading Comprehension Performance of Saudi EFL Students

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Meniado, Joel C.

2016-01-01

Metacognitive reading strategies and reading motivation play a significant role in enhancing reading comprehension. In an attempt to prove the foregoing claim in a context where there is no strong culture for reading, this study tries to find out if there is indeed a relationship between and among metacognitive reading strategies, reading…

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated with Reading Ability Show Connection to Socio-Economic Outcomes.

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Luciano, Michelle; Hagenaars, Saskia P; Cox, Simon R; Hill, William David; Davies, Gail; Harris, Sarah E; Deary, Ian J; Evans, David M; Martin, Nicholas G; Wright, Margaret J; Bates, Timothy C

2017-09-01

Impairments in reading and in language have negative consequences on life outcomes, but it is not known to what extent genetic effects influence this association. We constructed polygenic scores for difficulties with language and learning to read from genome-wide data in ~6,600 children, adolescents and young adults, and tested their association with health, socioeconomic outcomes and brain structure measures collected in adults (maximal N = 111,749). Polygenic risk of reading difficulties was associated with reduced income, educational attainment, self-rated health and verbal-numerical reasoning (p intelligence) and 0.70 (educational attainment) with reading ability. Mendelian randomization approaches will be important to dissociate any causal and moderating effects of reading and related traits on social outcomes.

Let's Bring Back the Magic of Song for Teaching Reading

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Iwasaki, Becky; Rasinski, Timothy; Yildirim, Kasim; Zimmerman, Belinda S.

2013-01-01

Based on a first grade teacher's search for approaches to promote successful reading acquisition in her first grade classroom, the authors present a curricular engagement in which the teacher explored using music, specifically singing songs, as a fun and motivating way to accelerate reading progress. The premise is that singing (while at the…

The effect of phonics-enhanced Big Book reading on the language and literacy skills of 6-year-old pupils of different reading ability attending lower SES schools

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Tse, Laura; Nicholson, Tom

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to improve the literacy achievement of lower socioeconomic status (SES) children by combining explicit phonics with Big Book reading. Big Book reading is a component of the text-centered (or book reading) approach used in New Zealand schools. It involves the teacher in reading an enlarged book to children and demonstrating how to use semantic, syntactic, and grapho-phonic cues to learn to read. There has been little research, however, to find out whether the effectiveness of Big Book reading is enhanced by adding explicit phonics. In this study, a group of 96 second graders from three lower SES primary schools in New Zealand were taught in 24 small groups of four, tracked into three different reading ability levels. All pupils were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: a control group who received math instruction, Big Book reading enhanced with phonics (BB/EP), Big Book reading on its own, and Phonics on its own. The results showed that the BB/EP group made significantly better progress than the Big Book and Phonics groups in word reading, reading comprehension, spelling, and phonemic awareness. In reading accuracy, the BB/EP and Big Book groups scored similarly. In basic decoding skills the BB/EP and Phonics groups scored similarly. The combined instruction, compared with Big Book reading and phonics, appeared to have no comparative disadvantages and considerable advantages. The present findings could be a model for New Zealand and other countries in their efforts to increase the literacy achievement of disadvantaged pupils. PMID:25431560

Does testing with feedback improve adult spelling skills relative to copying and reading?

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Pan, Steven C; Rubin, Benjamin R; Rickard, Timothy C

2015-12-01

We examined testing's ability to enhance adult spelling acquisition, relative to copying and reading. Across 3 experiments in which testing with feedback was compared with copying, the spelling improvement after testing matched that following the same amount of time spent copying. A potent testing advantage, however, was observed for spelling words free-recalled. In the fourth experiment, a large testing advantage for both word free recall and spelling was observed, versus reading. Subjects also generally preferred testing and rated it as more effective than copying or reading. The equivalent performance of testing and copying for spelling contrasts with prior work involving children and suggests that retrieval practice may not be the only effective mechanism for spelling skill acquisition. Rather, we suggest that the critical learning event for spelling is focused study on phoneme-to-grapheme mappings for previously unlearned letter sequences. For adults with extensive spelling expertise, focused study is more automatic during both copying and testing with feedback than for individuals with beginning spelling skills. Reading, however, would not be expected to produce efficient focused study of phoneme-to-grapheme mappings, regardless of expertise level. Overall, adult spelling skill acquisition benefits both from testing and copying, and substantially less from reading. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Discovering transcription factor binding sites in highly repetitive regions of genomes with multi-read analysis of ChIP-Seq data.

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Chung, Dongjun; Kuan, Pei Fen; Li, Bo; Sanalkumar, Rajendran; Liang, Kun; Bresnick, Emery H; Dewey, Colin; Keleş, Sündüz

2011-07-01

Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq) is rapidly replacing chromatin immunoprecipitation combined with genome-wide tiling array analysis (ChIP-chip) as the preferred approach for mapping transcription-factor binding sites and chromatin modifications. The state of the art for analyzing ChIP-seq data relies on using only reads that map uniquely to a relevant reference genome (uni-reads). This can lead to the omission of up to 30% of alignable reads. We describe a general approach for utilizing reads that map to multiple locations on the reference genome (multi-reads). Our approach is based on allocating multi-reads as fractional counts using a weighted alignment scheme. Using human STAT1 and mouse GATA1 ChIP-seq datasets, we illustrate that incorporation of multi-reads significantly increases sequencing depths, leads to detection of novel peaks that are not otherwise identifiable with uni-reads, and improves detection of peaks in mappable regions. We investigate various genome-wide characteristics of peaks detected only by utilization of multi-reads via computational experiments. Overall, peaks from multi-read analysis have similar characteristics to peaks that are identified by uni-reads except that the majority of them reside in segmental duplications. We further validate a number of GATA1 multi-read only peaks by independent quantitative real-time ChIP analysis and identify novel target genes of GATA1. These computational and experimental results establish that multi-reads can be of critical importance for studying transcription factor binding in highly repetitive regions of genomes with ChIP-seq experiments.

Discovering transcription factor binding sites in highly repetitive regions of genomes with multi-read analysis of ChIP-Seq data.

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Dongjun Chung

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq is rapidly replacing chromatin immunoprecipitation combined with genome-wide tiling array analysis (ChIP-chip as the preferred approach for mapping transcription-factor binding sites and chromatin modifications. The state of the art for analyzing ChIP-seq data relies on using only reads that map uniquely to a relevant reference genome (uni-reads. This can lead to the omission of up to 30% of alignable reads. We describe a general approach for utilizing reads that map to multiple locations on the reference genome (multi-reads. Our approach is based on allocating multi-reads as fractional counts using a weighted alignment scheme. Using human STAT1 and mouse GATA1 ChIP-seq datasets, we illustrate that incorporation of multi-reads significantly increases sequencing depths, leads to detection of novel peaks that are not otherwise identifiable with uni-reads, and improves detection of peaks in mappable regions. We investigate various genome-wide characteristics of peaks detected only by utilization of multi-reads via computational experiments. Overall, peaks from multi-read analysis have similar characteristics to peaks that are identified by uni-reads except that the majority of them reside in segmental duplications. We further validate a number of GATA1 multi-read only peaks by independent quantitative real-time ChIP analysis and identify novel target genes of GATA1. These computational and experimental results establish that multi-reads can be of critical importance for studying transcription factor binding in highly repetitive regions of genomes with ChIP-seq experiments.

Reading Fluency and Students with Reading Disabilities: How Fast Is Fast Enough to Promote Reading Comprehension?

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O'Connor, Rollanda E.

2018-01-01

The goal of improving reading rate and fluency is to positively impact reading comprehension; however, it is unclear how fast students with learning disabilities (LD) need to read to reap this benefit. The purpose of this research was to identify the point of diminishing return for students who were dysfluent readers. Participants included 337…

The Relationship between Strategic Reading Instruction, Student Learning of L2-Based Reading Strategies and L2 Reading Achievement

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Akkakoson, Songyut

2013-01-01

This study investigates the relationship between strategic reading instruction, the process of learning second language-based reading strategies and English reading achievement for Thai university students of science and technology. In a course in reading general English texts for 16?weeks, 82 students were taught using a strategies-based approach…

The Explicit/Implicit Knowledge Distinction and Working Memory: Implications for Second-Language Reading Comprehension

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Ercetin, Gulcan; Alptekin, Cem

2013-01-01

Following an extensive overview of the subject, this study explores the relationships between second-language (L2) explicit/implicit knowledge sources, embedded in the declarative/procedural memory systems, and L2 working memory (WM) capacity. It further examines the relationships between L2 reading comprehension and L2 WM capacity as well as…

The Effect of Baby Books on Mothers’ Reading Beliefs and Reading Practices

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Auger, Anamarie; Reich, Stephanie M.; Penner, Emily K.

2014-01-01

The impact of a baby book intervention on promoting positive reading beliefs and increasing reading frequency for low-income, new mothers (n = 167) was examined. The Baby Books Project randomly assigned low-income, first-time mothers to one of three study conditions, receiving educational books, non-educational books, or no books, during pregnancy and over the first year of parenthood. Home-based data collection occurred through pregnancy until 18 months post-partum. Mothers who received free baby books had higher beliefs about the importance of reading, the value of having resources to support reading, and the importance of verbal participation during reading. The results showed that providing any type of baby books to mothers positively influenced maternal reading beliefs, but did not increase infant-mother reading practices. Maternal reading beliefs across all three groups were significantly associated with self-reported reading frequency when children were at least 12 months of age. PMID:25264394

Pedagogy and the Art of Death: Reparative Readings of Death and Dying in Margaret Edson's Wit.

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Gottlieb, Christine M

2015-11-19

Wit explores modes of reading representations of death and dying, both through the play's sustained engagement with Donne's Holy Sonnets and through Vivian's self-reflexive approach to her illness and death. I argue that the play dramatizes reparative readings, a term coined by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to describe an alternative to the paranoid reading practices that have come to dominate literary criticism. By analyzing the play's reparative readings of death and dying (as well as its representation of the shortcomings of paranoid readings), I show how Wit provides lessons about knowledge-making and reading practices in the field of health humanities.

Pre-reading activities in EFL/ESL reading textbooks and Turkish preparatory school teachers' attitudes toward pre-reading activities

OpenAIRE

Jecksembieyva, Nurgaisha

1993-01-01

Ankara : Faculty of Humanities and Letters and the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences of Bilkent University, 1993. Thesis (Master's) -- -Bilkent University, 1993. Includes bibliographical references leaves 35-40. The main focus of this study was to investigate pre-reading activities in EFL/ESL reading textbooks and to determine teachers' attitudes toward pre-reading activities. Fifteen reading textbooks for EFL/ESL students for different proficiency levels (beginning, interm...

Reading, Writing & Rings: Science Literacy for K-4 Students

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McConnell, S.; Spilker, L.; Zimmerman-Brachman, R.

2007-12-01

Scientific discovery is the impetus for the K-4 Education program, "Reading, Writing & Rings." This program is unique because its focus is to engage elementary students in reading and writing to strengthen these basic academic skills through scientific content. As science has been increasingly overtaken by the language arts in elementary classrooms, the Cassini Education Program has taken advantage of a new cross-disciplinary approach to use language arts as a vehicle for increasing scientific content in the classroom. By utilizing the planet Saturn and the Cassini-Huygens mission as a model in both primary reading and writing students in these grade levels, young students can explore science material while at the same time learning these basic academic skills. Content includes reading, thinking, and hands-on activities. Developed in partnership with the Cassini-Huygens Education and Public Outreach Program, the Bay Area Writing Project/California Writing Project, Foundations in Reading Through Science & Technology (FIRST), and the Caltech Pre-College Science Initiative (CAPSI), and classroom educators, "Reading, Writing & Rings" blends the excitement of space exploration with reading and writing. All materials are teacher developed, aligned with national science and language education standards, and are available from the Cassini-Huygens website: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/education/edu-k4.cfm Materials are divided into two grade level units. One unit is designed for students in grades 1 and 2 while the other unit focuses on students in grades 3 and 4. Each includes a series of lessons that take students on a path of exploration of Saturn using reading and writing prompts.

Separating metagenomic short reads into genomes via clustering

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Tanaseichuk Olga

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The metagenomics approach allows the simultaneous sequencing of all genomes in an environmental sample. This results in high complexity datasets, where in addition to repeats and sequencing errors, the number of genomes and their abundance ratios are unknown. Recently developed next-generation sequencing (NGS technologies significantly improve the sequencing efficiency and cost. On the other hand, they result in shorter reads, which makes the separation of reads from different species harder. Among the existing computational tools for metagenomic analysis, there are similarity-based methods that use reference databases to align reads and composition-based methods that use composition patterns (i.e., frequencies of short words or l-mers to cluster reads. Similarity-based methods are unable to classify reads from unknown species without close references (which constitute the majority of reads. Since composition patterns are preserved only in significantly large fragments, composition-based tools cannot be used for very short reads, which becomes a significant limitation with the development of NGS. A recently proposed algorithm, AbundanceBin, introduced another method that bins reads based on predicted abundances of the genomes sequenced. However, it does not separate reads from genomes of similar abundance levels. Results In this work, we present a two-phase heuristic algorithm for separating short paired-end reads from different genomes in a metagenomic dataset. We use the observation that most of the l-mers belong to unique genomes when l is sufficiently large. The first phase of the algorithm results in clusters of l-mers each of which belongs to one genome. During the second phase, clusters are merged based on l-mer repeat information. These final clusters are used to assign reads. The algorithm could handle very short reads and sequencing errors. It is initially designed for genomes with similar abundance levels and then

Development of a Case-based Reading Curriculum and Its Effect on Resident Reading.

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Messman, Anne M; Walker, Ian

2018-01-01

Textbook reading plays a foundational role in a resident's knowledge base. Many residency programs place residents on identical reading schedules, regardless of the clinical work or rotation the resident is doing. We sought to develop a reading curriculum that takes into account the clinical work a resident is doing so their reading curriculum corresponds with their clinical work. Preliminary data suggests an increased amount of resident reading and an increased interest in reading as a result of this change to their reading curriculum.

Relationship between Vocabulary Size and Reading Comprehension Levels of Malaysian Tertiary Students

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Angelina Wan Lin Tan

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This study investigated the relationship between vocabulary size and reading comprehension performance among students in a tertiary institution in a Malaysian context and examined the vocabulary size required for students to achieve reading comprehension at various levels of proficiency. The research questions that guided this study were: 1 What is the vocabulary size of second year diploma students studying Mass Communication?; 2 What is the reading comprehension proficiency of second year diploma students studying Mass Communication?; and 3 What vocabulary size is required for different levels of reading comprehension proficiency? This study used the quantitative approach. The participants were 53 Malaysian second-year students at a private university college in Malaysia who were reading for their Diploma in Mass Communication. The instruments used were the Vocabulary Size Test and the IELTS Reading Test (Academic Module. The findings showed that the average vocabulary size of the students was just over 6000 word families and this vocabulary size was generally insufficient for adequate reading comprehension. Students needed an average vocabulary size of about 8000 word families to achieve adequate reading comprehension and about 10000 word families to achieve proficient reading comprehension. Based on the individual student’s performance, this study did not find a linear relationship between vocabulary size and reading comprehension performance, nor was there a threshold vocabulary size for adequate reading comprehension.

Identifying wrong assemblies in de novo short read primary ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

2016-08-05

Aug 5, 2016 ... Most of these assemblies are done using some de novo short read assemblers and other related approaches. .... benchmarking projects like Assemblathon 1, Assemblathon ... from a large insert library (at least 1000 bases).

Development of a Case-based Reading Curriculum and Its Effect on Resident Reading

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Anne M. Messman

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Textbook reading plays a foundational role in a resident’s knowledge base. Many residency programs place residents on identical reading schedules, regardless of the clinical work or rotation the resident is doing. We sought to develop a reading curriculum that takes into account the clinical work a resident is doing so their reading curriculum corresponds with their clinical work. Preliminary data suggests an increased amount of resident reading and an increased interest in reading as a result of this change to their reading curriculum.

Technology-Based Shared Story Reading for Students with Autism Who Are English-Language Learners

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Alison, Caryn; Root, Jenny R.; Browder, Diane M.; Wood, Leah

2017-01-01

Demonstrating comprehension of text is a complex skill that is an area of difficulty for many students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Shared story reading is an intervention that has a history of effectiveness in teaching literacy skills to students with extensive support needs. This study used a multiple probe across participants design to…

Early reading intervention by means of a multicomponent reading game

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ven, M.A.M. van de; Leeuw, L.C. de; Weerdenburg, M.W.C. van; Steenbeek-Planting, E.G.

2017-01-01

This study examined the effects of an intervention with a multicomponent reading game on the development of reading skills in 60 Dutch primary school children with special educational needs. The game contains evidence-based reading exercises and is based on principles of applied gaming. Using a

Translating advances in reading comprehension research to educational practice

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Danielle S. McNamara

2011-07-01

Full Text Available The authors review five major findings in reading comprehension and their implications for educational practice. First, research suggests that comprehension skills are separable from decoding processes and important at early ages, suggesting that comprehension skills should be targeted early, even before the child learns to read. Second, there is an important distinction between reading processes and products, as well as their causal relationship: processes lead to certain products. Hence, instructional approaches and strategies focusing on processes are needed to improve students’ reading performance (i.e., product. Third, inferences are a crucial component of skilled comprehension. Hence, children need scaffolding and remediation to learn to generate inferences, even when they know little about the text topic. Fourth, comprehension depends on a complex interaction between the reader, the characteristics of the text, and the instructional task, highlighting the need for careful selection of instructional materials for individual students and specific groups of students. Finally, educators may benefit from heightened awareness of the limitations and inadequacies of standardized reading comprehension assessments, as well as the multidimensionality of comprehension to better understand their students’ particular strengths and weaknesses.

Reading-Related Causal Attributions for Success and Failure: Dynamic Links With Reading Skill.

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Frijters, Jan C; Tsujimoto, Kimberley C; Boada, Richard; Gottwald, Stephanie; Hill, Dina; Jacobson, Lisa A; Lovett, Maureen W; Mahone, E Mark; Willcutt, Erik G; Wolf, Maryanne; Bosson-Heenan, Joan; Gruen, Jeffrey R

2018-01-01

The present study investigated the relation among reading skills and attributions, naming speed, and phonological awareness across a wide range of reading skill. Participants were 1,105 school-age children and youths from two understudied populations: African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Individual assessments of children ranging in age from 8 to 15 years were conducted for reading outcomes, cognitive and linguistic predictors of reading, and attributions for success and failure in reading situations. Quantile regressions were formulated to estimate these relations across the full skill span of each outcome. Reading-related attributions predicted contextual word recognition, sight word and decoding fluency, and comprehension skills. Attributions to ability in success situations were positively related to each outcome across the full span. On three reading outcomes, this relation strengthened at higher skill levels. Attributions to effort in success situations were consistently and negatively related to all reading outcomes. The results provide evidence that the strength of the relation between reading and attributions varies according to reading skill levels, with the strongest evidence for ability-based attributions in situations of reading success.

Ethical objections against including life-extension costs in cost-effectiveness analysis: a consistent approach.

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Gandjour, Afschin; Müller, Dirk

2014-10-01

One of the major ethical concerns regarding cost-effectiveness analysis in health care has been the inclusion of life-extension costs ("it is cheaper to let people die"). For this reason, many analysts have opted to rule out life-extension costs from the analysis. However, surprisingly little has been written in the health economics literature regarding this ethical concern and the resulting practice. The purpose of this work was to present a framework and potential solution for ethical objections against life-extension costs. This work found three levels of ethical concern: (i) with respect to all life-extension costs (disease-related and -unrelated); (ii) with respect to disease-unrelated costs only; and (iii) regarding disease-unrelated costs plus disease-related costs not influenced by the intervention. Excluding all life-extension costs for ethical reasons would require-for reasons of consistency-a simultaneous exclusion of savings from reducing morbidity. At the other extreme, excluding only disease-unrelated life-extension costs for ethical reasons would require-again for reasons of consistency-the exclusion of health gains due to treatment of unrelated diseases. Therefore, addressing ethical concerns regarding the inclusion of life-extension costs necessitates fundamental changes in the calculation of cost effectiveness.

Integrating Response to Intervention (RTI) with Neuropsychology: A Scientific Approach to Reading

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Feifer, Steven G.

2008-01-01

This article integrates the fundamental components of both "Response to Intervention" (RTI) and cognitive neuropsychology when identifying reading disorders in children. Both proponents of RTI and cognitive neuropsychology agree the "discrepancy model" is not a reliable or valid method to identify learning disorders in school. In addition, both…

The Importance of Metacognitive Reading Strategy Awareness in Reading Comprehension

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Ahmadi, Mohammad Reza; Ismail, Hairul Nizam; Abdullah, Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan

2013-01-01

Metacognitive reading strategy awareness plays a significant role in reading comprehension and educational process. In spite of its importance, metacognitive strategy has long been the ignored skill in English language teaching, research, learning, and assessment. This lack of good metacognitive reading strategy skill is exacerbated by the central…

Identifying Engineering Students' English Sentence Reading Comprehension Errors: Applying a Data Mining Technique

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Tsai, Yea-Ru; Ouyang, Chen-Sen; Chang, Yukon

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study is to propose a diagnostic approach to identify engineering students' English reading comprehension errors. Student data were collected during the process of reading texts of English for science and technology on a web-based cumulative sentence analysis system. For the analysis, the association-rule, data mining technique…

Reading. Functional Programming for People with Autism: Revised. A Series.

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Porco, Barbara

This booklet describes techniques for teaching reading with teacher-made materials to students with autism. A modified language experience approach built around the Dolch Basic Sight Word List is used, incorporating familiar names and words of importance for each child. Readiness skills are incorporated into the approach as well as an emphasis on…

EXPLORING STUDENTS‟ DIFFICULTIES IN READING ACADEMIC TEXTS

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Ira Ernawati

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Academic texts play an important role for university students. However, those texts are considered difficult. This study is intended to investigate students‘ difficulties in reading academic texts. The qualitative approach was employed in this study. The design was a case study. The participants were ten students from fifth semester of CLS: EE (Classroom Language and Strategy: Explaining and Exemplifying class who were selected by using purposive sampling. The data were gathered from students‘ journal reflections, observation, and interview. The finding shows that the students encountered reading difficulties in area of textual factors, namely vocabulary, comprehending specific information, text organization, and grammar and human factors including background knowledge, mood, laziness, and time constraint.

How do children read words? A focus on reading processes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van den Boer, M.

2014-01-01

Being able to read is very important in our literate society. Many studies, therefore, have examined children’s reading skills to improve our understanding of reading development. In general, there have been two types of studies. On the one hand, there is a line of research that focuses on the

ELL High School Students' Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategy Use and Reading Proficiency

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Hong-Nam, Kay

2014-01-01

This study investigated the metacognitive awareness and reading strategies use of high school-­aged English language learners (ELLs) and the relationship between ELL reading strategy use and reading proficiency as measured by a standardized reading test and self-­rated reading proficiency. Results reveal that participants reported moderate use of…

Rearing a reading habit

OpenAIRE

Sridhar, M. S.

2009-01-01

Discusses the importance and ways of inculcating reading habit in children at the right age, describes the five reading phases in children along with interest and the material to satiate the need, explains how four deterministic factors affect the reading habit of children, enlists motivations that are behind the reading process with tips to improve reading habit of children.

Effects of Listening While Reading (LWR on Swahili Reading Fluency and Comprehension

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Filipo Lubua

2016-10-01

Full Text Available A number of studies have examined the contribution of technology in teaching such languages as English, French, and Spanish, among many others. Contrarily, most LCTL’s, have received very little attention. This study investigates if listening while reading (LWR may expedite Swahili reading fluency and comprehension. The study employed the iBook Author tool to create weekly mediated and interactive reading texts, with comprehension exercises, which were eventually used to collect descriptive and qualitative data from four Elementary Swahili students. Participants participated in a seven week reading program, which provided them with some kind of directed self-learning, and met with the instructor for at least 30 minutes every week for observation and more reading activities. The teacher recorded their reading scores, and a number of themes on how LWR influenced reading fluency and comprehension are discussed here. It shows that participants have a positive attitude towards LWR and they suggest it for all the reading classes.

Nonhybrid, finished microbial genome assemblies from long-read SMRT sequencing data.

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Chin, Chen-Shan; Alexander, David H; Marks, Patrick; Klammer, Aaron A; Drake, James; Heiner, Cheryl; Clum, Alicia; Copeland, Alex; Huddleston, John; Eichler, Evan E; Turner, Stephen W; Korlach, Jonas

2013-06-01

We present a hierarchical genome-assembly process (HGAP) for high-quality de novo microbial genome assemblies using only a single, long-insert shotgun DNA library in conjunction with Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) DNA sequencing. Our method uses the longest reads as seeds to recruit all other reads for construction of highly accurate preassembled reads through a directed acyclic graph-based consensus procedure, which we follow with assembly using off-the-shelf long-read assemblers. In contrast to hybrid approaches, HGAP does not require highly accurate raw reads for error correction. We demonstrate efficient genome assembly for several microorganisms using as few as three SMRT Cell zero-mode waveguide arrays of sequencing and for BACs using just one SMRT Cell. Long repeat regions can be successfully resolved with this workflow. We also describe a consensus algorithm that incorporates SMRT sequencing primary quality values to produce de novo genome sequence exceeding 99.999% accuracy.

Impacto de un programa de lectura extensiva en la adquisicion de una segunda lengua (Impact of an Extensive Reading Program on Second Language Acquisition).

Science.gov (United States)

Coll, Ana; And Others

This study investigates the application of Krashen's Input Hypothesis, studying the relationship between exposure to the target language and language acquisition within the context of the English-as-a-foreign-language secondary classroom in Spain. The project studied the effect of additional reading instruction with emphasis on reading for…

Fusing Eye-gaze and Speech Recognition for Tracking in an Automatic Reading Tutor

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasmussen, Morten Højfeldt; Tan, Zheng-Hua

2013-01-01

In this paper we present a novel approach for automatically tracking the reading progress using a combination of eye-gaze tracking and speech recognition. The two are fused by first generating word probabilities based on eye-gaze information and then using these probabilities to augment the langu......In this paper we present a novel approach for automatically tracking the reading progress using a combination of eye-gaze tracking and speech recognition. The two are fused by first generating word probabilities based on eye-gaze information and then using these probabilities to augment...

Reading Fluency Instruction for Students at Risk for Reading Failure

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Ring, Jeremiah J.; Barefoot, Lexie C.; Avrit, Karen J.; Brown, Sasha A.; Black, Jeffrey L.

2013-01-01

The important role of reading fluency in the comprehension and motivation of readers is well documented. Two reading rate intervention programs were compared in a cluster-randomized clinical trial of students who were considered at-risk for reading failure. One program focused instruction at the word level; the second program focused instruction…

STUDENTS’ READING PRACTICES AND ENVIRONMENTS

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Aiza Johari

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract: The challenges of reading are indeed apparent in most teaching and learning processes in ESL classrooms. As a result, this study is conducted to resolve the issues of students who seem to find reading to be unbearable. Many of them have limited ability to read well and hence, possess insufficient reading habits to become competent readers, particularly out-of-school context. Besides, poor home literacy environments also contribute to their shortcomings in reading. The main objectives of this study are to identify the students’ reasons for reading as well as to find out their home reading environments (reading backgrounds and habits; reading attitudes and motivation; reading exposure and supports. To identify these, questionnaires were distributed to 120 secondary school students (Form 4: 16 years old from one of the urban schools in Sarawak, Malaysia. The findings indicate that the students read to gain information and knowledge though many chose reading as a hobby as their last choice in explaining their motives of reading. Besides, they preferred non-academic reading materials, mainly lighter forms reading materials such as comics, story books and magazines. Though the students acknowledged the importance of reading in their daily lives, their average reading habits, attitude, motivation, exposure and support within the home domain had suggested otherwise. They mainly read for instrumental purposes while reading for pleasure seemed not to be given priority. Besides, the respondents acknowledge that their parents and themselves did not read much at home. As an implication, it is vital for students to improve their reading perceptions, abilities and practices to achieve personal, societal and national progress. On a final note, parents’ early and continuous efforts to be involved in their children’s literacy events in an out-of-school context are believed to be vital to inculcate positive reading environments, habits and culture

Live tree carbon stock equivalence of fire and fuels extension to the Forest Vegetation Simulator and Forest Inventory and Analysis approaches

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James E. Smith; Coeli M. Hoover

2017-01-01

The carbon reports in the Fire and Fuels Extension (FFE) to the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) provide two alternate approaches to carbon estimates for live trees (Rebain 2010). These are (1) the FFE biomass algorithms, which are volumebased biomass equations, and (2) the Jenkins allometric equations (Jenkins and others 2003), which are diameter based. Here, we...

Measuring adult literacy students' reading skills using the Gray Oral Reading Test.

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Greenberg, Daphne; Pae, Hye Kyeong; Morris, Robin D; Calhoon, Mary Beth; Nanda, Alice O

2009-12-01

There are not enough reading tests standardized on adults who have very low literacy skills, and therefore tests standardized on children are frequently administered. This study addressed the complexities and problems of using a test normed on children to measure the reading comprehension skills of 193 adults who read at approximately third through fifth grade reading grade equivalency levels. Findings are reported from an analysis of the administration of Form A of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Fourth Edition (Wiederholt & Bryant, 2001a, b). Results indicated that educators and researchers should be very cautious when interpreting test results of adults who have difficulty reading when children's norm-referenced tests are administered.

A good Darwinian? Winwood Reade and the making of a late Victorian evolutionary epic.

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Hesketh, Ian

2015-06-01

In 1871 the travel writer and anthropologist W. Winwood Reade (1838-1875) was inspired by his correspondence with Darwin to turn his narrow ethnological research on West African tribes into the broadest history imaginable, one that would show Darwin's great principle of natural selection at work throughout the evolutionary history of humanity, stretching back to the origins of the universe itself. But when Martyrdom of Man was published in 1872, Reade confessed that Darwin would not likely find him a very good Darwinian, as he was unable to show that natural selection was anything more than a secondary law that arranges all details. When it came to historicising humans within the sweeping history of all creation, Reade argued that the primary law was that of development, a less contentious theory of human evolution that was better suited to Reade's progressive and teleological history of life. By focussing on the extensive correspondence between Reade and Darwin, this paper reconstructs the attempt to make an explicitly Darwinian evolutionary epic in order to shed light on the moral and aesthetic demands that worked to give shape to Victorian efforts to historicise humans within a vastly expanding timeframe. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Synthetic phonics and decodable instructional reading texts: How far do these support poor readers?

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Price-Mohr, Ruth Maria; Price, Colin Bernard

2018-05-01

This paper presents data from a quasi-experimental trial with paired randomisation that emerged during the development of a reading scheme for children in England. This trial was conducted with a group of 12 children, aged 5-6, and considered to be falling behind their peers in reading ability and a matched control group. There were two intervention conditions (A: using mixed teaching methods and a high percentage of non-phonically decodable vocabulary; P: using mixed teaching methods and low percentage of non-decodable vocabulary); allocation to these was randomised. Children were assessed at pre- and post-test on standardised measures of receptive vocabulary, phoneme awareness, word reading, and comprehension. Two class teachers in the same school each selected 6 children, who they considered to be poor readers, to participate (n = 12). A control group (using synthetic phonics only and phonically decodable vocabulary) was selected from the same 2 classes based on pre-test scores for word reading (n = 16). Results from the study show positive benefits for poor readers from using both additional teaching methods (such as analytic phonics, sight word vocabulary, and oral vocabulary extension) in addition to synthetic phonics, and also non-decodable vocabulary in instructional reading text. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reading: United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Weber, Rose-Marie

1983-01-01

An exploration of the increasingly important role of linguistics in literacy research and instruction reviews literature on reading comprehension, written language, orthography, metalinguistics, classroom language use, reading disabilities, native tongues, nonstandard dialects, bilingual education, adult literacy, and second-language reading. (86…

The Use of Metacognitive Reading Strategies among Students at International Burch University: A Case Study

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Becirovic, Senad; Brdarevic-Celjo, Amna; Sinanovic, Jasmina

2017-01-01

Being notably absent from many classrooms and largely unaware of by many language learners, metacognitive reading strategies have attracted a keen interest of scholars and have been extensively researched in very diverse contexts. Thus, the primary goal of this research is to determine the overall usage of different types of metacognitive reading…

Approaches of Extension Specialists to Teaching Community and Economic Development.

Science.gov (United States)

Leones, Julie

1995-01-01

Responses from 64 of 80 extension agents specializing in community resources and economic development identified the "Journal of the Community Development Society" as the primary source of ideas and information. Frequently cited program topics were entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, budgeting, strategic planning, and leadership development. Among…

Re-Reading Dewey through a Feminist Lens

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Vorsino, Mary

2015-01-01

In this review, Mary Vorsino writes that she is interested in keeping the potential influences of women pragmatists of Dewey's day in mind while presenting modern feminist re readings of Dewey. She wishes to construct a narrowly-focused and succinct literature review of thinkers who have donned a feminist lens to analyze Dewey's approaches to…

The Living Classroom: Writing, Reading, and Beyond.