The effect of passage topical structure types on ESL reading comprehension difficulty

Reading is one of the four language skills taught in the English language learning process besides listening, speaking, and writing. This research aims to know the students’ difficulties in reading comprehension at SMA Negeri 1 Sukodadi and to know the factors of students’ difficulties in reading comprehension at SMA Negeri 1 Sukodadi. This research is descriptive qualitative research. The research was conducted in march 2020. The subject of research was the tenth-grade MIPA 5 of SMA Negeri 1 Sukodadi who were detected that they had difficulties in reading comprehension. The techniques for collecting the data were interviews and documents. the researcher collected the data such as students’ worksheet. The second was data reduction. The researcher classified and reduced the data based on focus. The researcher deleted several data that did not relate to the difficulties in reading comprehension. The third was the data display, the researcher arranged the information to conclude. The researcher presented the data from the difficulties in reading comprehension, and the last is the conclusion. The result of the research showed that some students had difficulties in reading comprehension and they had difficulty in different levels, namely literal comprehension, inferential comprehension, critical comprehension, and creative comprehension. The most difficulties experienced by students were at the level of creative comprehension. The factor of the students’ difficulties in comprehension at tenth grade, there was an inadequate instruction presented by the teacher, lack of pupils’ interest, and the vocabulary difficulties. Keywords: Students’ Difficulties, Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is vital for academic success and active engagement in society. However, persistent challenges in reading comprehension have been observed across educational levels, underscoring the need for deeper research. While linguistic and cognitive components have been traditionally studied, the impact of motivational aspects on comprehension difficulties remains underexplored. This dissertation aimed to address this gap by investigating the effects of various dimensions of reading motivation on specific types of reading comprehension difficulties among Chilean Primary Education students. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, the research comprised three studies. Study 1 developed and tested a comprehensive reading motivation scale. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses validated the scale's structure and assessed its reliability. Study 2 explored the relationship between reading motivation dimensions and reading profiles (mixed deficit, poor decoders, poor comprehenders, and good readers). Cluster analysis identified distinct reading profiles, and multivariate analyses examined differences in motivation dimensions among these profiles. Study 3 employed qualitative methods to delve into students' perceptions of reading value and self-concept, particularly among those with reading difficulties. Students' reasons for engagement or disengagement with reading activities were explored through interviews. The participants were 172 students from 2nd to 6th grade from three public schools in Santiago. Quantitative assessments included reading comprehension, word reading, language comprehension, and a reading motivation questionnaire. Qualitative data was collected through interviews with a subsample of 75 students. Findings from this dissertation include differences in motivation between groups of readers, especially for undermining reading motivations and the distinction of readers’ self-concept and value. The studies offer insights into the nuanced relationship between reading motivation and comprehension difficulties and the need for further research on this population.

Machine reading comprehension has been an interesting and challenging task in recent years, with the purpose of extracting useful information from texts. To attain the computer ability to understand the reading text and answer relevant information, we introduce ViMMRC 2.0 — an extension of the previous ViMMRC for the task of multiple-choice reading comprehension in Vietnamese Textbooks which contain the reading articles for students from Grade 1 to Grade 12. This dataset has 699 reading passages which are prose and poems, and 5273 questions. The questions in the new dataset are not fixed with four options as in the previous version. Moreover, the difficulty of questions is increased, which challenges the models to find the correct choice. The computer must understand the whole context of the reading passage, the question, and the content of each choice to extract the right answers. Hence, we propose a multi-stage approach that combines the multi-step attention network (MAN) with the natural language inference (NLI) task to enhance the performance of the reading comprehension model. Then, we compare the proposed methodology with the baseline BERTology models on the new dataset and the ViMMRC 1.0. From the results of the error analysis, we found that the challenge of the reading comprehension models is understanding the implicit context in texts and linking them together in order to find the correct answers. Finally, we hope our new dataset will motivate further research to enhance the ability of computers to understand the Vietnamese language.

Previous studies suggest that Chinese topic structures, especially base-generated structures, are difficult for L1 English L2 Chinese learners, and only at the very advanced stage do learners perform at the target-like level. Yuan (1995) hypothesizes that non-advanced L2 learners may have difficulty adding a topic node to the subject-predicate structure and that they tend to interpret the topic as the subject. The present study tests this hypothesis and seeks to find out if structure building is accessible to L2 learners before they reach an advanced stage. A grammatical judgment experiment was conducted on several types of topic structures. Results show that lower-level subjects behaved on a par with native speakers on certain types of topic structures. This result suggests that L2 learners are able to build new structures at an early stage.

Several reports suggest that self-efficacy is a critical determinant of reading comprehension among EFL learners. While extensive work has assessed the relationship between self-efficacy and reading performance, little to no information exists on how self-efficacy influences reading among Iraqi secondary school EFL learners. Additionally, there is also a scarcity of studies employing focus group discussions that probe into the educational and contextual issues contributing to students’ difficulties in reading comprehension. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative approaches to identify the factors affecting reading comprehension challenges among Iraqi secondary school EFL learners. Participants completed a survey on self-efficacy and a reading comprehension test, and a group of participants took part in a focus group discussion. Relationship analyses were conducted to assess the direct link between self-efficacy and reading comprehension, and students’ narratives from group discussions were transcribed to gain in-depth insights. Results revealed that self-efficacy has a positive and significant impact on students’ reading comprehension scores. Learners with higher self-efficacy scores performed better in their reading comprehension tests, while those with lower self-efficacy showed poorer performance. The qualitative findings further highlighted five key factors behind reading comprehension challenges: limited vocabulary, lack of interest, inadequate practice, insufficient support, and ineffective teaching approaches. These results provide useful insights for educators and policymakers on the factors that both facilitate and impede reading comprehension among Iraqi secondary school EFL learners.

News videos delivered from different sources constitute a huge volume of daily information. These videos, overall, form a huge collection of news stories that are intertwined with various novel and old topic themes. To date, it remains a challenging task on how to automatically extract a concise view of news stories according to topic themes. This doctoral thesis studies the issues in story dependency threading and topical auto-documentary in news stories. Initially, a co-clustering algorithm is proposed to perform the news story clustering by exploiting the duality between stories and multi-modal concepts. Then, the novelty and redundancy detection is performed to capture the relationship among stories of a topic. To facilitate the fast navigation of news topic, a novel topic structure is then proposed to chains the dependencies of stories. A main thread is extracted to highlight the important aspects of a theme. A news video editing optimization algorithm can be directly applied to automatically select suitable video and speech contents from the original video source to create an edited video documentary.

Reading comprehension is one of the most important skills learned in school and it has an important contribution to the academic success of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Though previous studies have investigated reading comprehension difficulties in ASD and highlighted factors that contribute to these difficulties, this evidence has mainly stemmed from children with ASD and intact cognitive skills. Also, much emphasis has been placed on the relation between reading comprehension and word recognition skills, while the role of other skills, including fluency and morphosyntax, remains underexplored. This study addresses these gaps by investigating reading comprehension in two groups of school-aged children with ASD, one with intact and one with low cognitive abilities, also exploring the roles of word decoding, fluency and morphosyntax in each group's reading comprehension performance. The study recruited 16 children with ASD and low cognitive abilities, and 22 age-matched children with ASD and intact cognitive skills. The children were assessed on four reading subdomains, namely, decoding, fluency, morphosyntax, and reading comprehension. The children with ASD and low cognitive abilities scored significantly lower than their peers with intact cognitive abilities in all reading subdomains, except for decoding, verb production and compound word formation. Regression analyses showed that reading comprehension in the group with ASD and intact cognitive abilities was independently driven by their decoding and fluency skills, and to a lesser extent, by morphosyntax. On the other hand, the children with ASD and low cognitive abilities mainly drew on their decoding, and to a lesser extent, their morphosyntactic skills to perform in reading comprehension. The results suggest that reading comprehension was more strongly affected in the children with ASD and low cognitive abilities as compared to those with intact cognitive skills. About half of the children with ASD and intact cognitive skills also exhibited mild-to-moderate reading comprehension difficulties, further implying that ASD may influence reading comprehension regardless of cognitive functioning. Finally, strengths in decoding seemed to predominantly drive cognitively-impaired children's reading performance, while the group with ASD and intact cognitive skills mainly recruited fluency and metalinguistic lexical skills to cope with reading comprehension demands, further suggesting that metalinguistic awareness may be a viable way to enhance reading comprehension in ASD.

In this researcher centers on the troubles in reading comprehension by the second semester of students ‘of FKIP in Batanghari University. In this plan, analyst utilized quantitative method. Subject of the analyst is students’ second semester (A2). The researcher used Purposive sampling to select the sample consists of 10 students. There was just only one class of the second semester. The technique of collecting data was by using a test by multiple choice consisted of 20 question items and questionnaire with Likert scale was utilized to gather information. Based on the finding of students’ reactions in questionnaire, they were with score weak criterion. The researcher it can be concluded that the most under studies had trouble in Reading Comprehension. Furthermore, Reading Comprehension test only two students got high scores 90. And Average 49, 5. It is demonstrates that the students have troubles in answering reading comprehension test The researcher it can be concluded that the most students had difficulty in Reading Comprehension. It is recommended that to have a great of perusing comprehension, understudies ought to learn more approximately the perusing comprehension and continuously perusing English content such as perusing aptitudes and doing hone perusing test.

The International Reading Speed Texts (IReST) is a valid measure of reading speed in a Canadian sample. However, if clinicians desire to assess reading comprehension using the IReST, this will significantly reduce reading speeds of individuals with normal vision or reduced visual acuity and therefore should use the values presented here. The purposes of this study are (1) to validate the IReST in an English-speaking Canadian sample and (2) to examine how reading comprehension questions and reduced visual acuity affect reading speed on the IReST. For study 1, Canadian English speakers (n = 25) read all 10 IReST following the procedures used in the original IReST validation. For study 2, Canadian English speakers (n = 50) read all 10 IReST, half with normal/corrected-to-normal vision and half with reduced visual acuity, and were asked reading comprehension questions. No significant differences were found between Canadian sample and the published IReST values (in all cases, P > .05; mean difference [Mdiff] = -5.30 to +11.43; Cohen d = -0.15 to +0.27; Bayes factors = 0.41, 0.09). Assessing reading comprehension with multiple-choice questions on the IReST significantly reduced reading speeds in the normal vision condition (Mdiff = 25.3; 95% confidence interval, -16.7 to -34.1) and in the simulated impairment condition (Mdiff = 59.3; 95% confidence interval, -47.7 to -71). The IReST is a valid measure that can be used to assess reading speed in a Canadian English-speaking sample. If researchers/clinicians wish to assess both reading speed and comprehension, using multiple-choice reading comprehension questions, then the values provided by the IReST will likely underestimate an individual's true reading speed in individuals with normal/corrected-to-normal vision or reduced visual acuity.

Since the introduction of writing systems, reading comprehension has always been a foundation for achievement in several areas within the educational system, as well as a prerequisite for successful participation in most areas of adult life. The increased availability of technologies and web-based resources can be a really valid support, both in the educational and clinical field, to devise training activities that can also be carried out remotely. There are studies in current literature that has examined the efficacy of internet-based programs for reading comprehension for children with reading comprehension difficulties but almost none considered distance rehabilitation programs. The present paper reports data concerning a distance program Cloze, developed in Italy, for improving language and reading comprehension. Twenty-eight children from 3rd to 6th grade with comprehension difficulties were involved. These children completed the distance program for 15–20 min for at least three times a week for about 4 months. The program was presented separately to each child, with a degree of difficulty adapted to his/her characteristics. Text reading comprehension (assessed distinguishing between narrative and informative texts) increased after intervention. These findings have clinical and educational implications as they suggest that it is possible to promote reading comprehension with a distance individualized program, avoiding the need for the child displacements, necessary for reaching a rehabilitation center.

Doing reading comprehension needs active process in doing. The suitable teaching-learning process must achieve the objective of reading comprehension. In fact, reading skill is not easy. Lecturer should use good strategy in teaching about reading comprehension. It also happens for students that they find some hard in doing reading comprehension well. They can’t get good value for understanding the text meaning. So, the strategy is very useful to solve the difficulties in reading comprehension. This study is concerned with the reading effect about descriptive text through Metacognition strategy application. This study learns about students reading skills in descriptive text. This research is conducted based on experimental quantitative design which has two randomized subject. The population were Health Information Management students at Deli Husada Deli Tua Health Institute grade I, II and III. The random sample was taken from grade I and III as group of experimental and grade II as the control group. In every group was given pre-test and post-test in same test but the experimental group accepted the treatment of Metacognition strategy in the study. The result of this research showed that there was difference between the mean of the group of experimental and the group of control. The statistic calculation showed that t-observed (4.1) is higher than t-table (1.67) for the degree of freedom (df) 58 at the level α = 0.05 level of significance. It proves that Metacognition strategy has significantly effect on students’ reading comprehension in reading descriptive text.

The Purpose of this paper research is to find out how the framing conducted by Kompas.com Media Associated with alleged blasphemy by Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, and want to see more about the procedures or techniques used by Kompas.com in placing and positioning related news the issues of sara or blasphemy by Ahok. As for analyzing this, the writer used the framing model of Pan and Gerald M. Kosicki, in which there are 4 types of structure, namely, syntactic structure (the way journalists compile facts), script structures (how journalists tell facts), thematic structures (how journalist write facts) and rhetorical structure (the way journalist emphasize facts). As well as looking at the relationship between the media and politics in the Ahok case with media and political theory.In writing this paper the writer used qualitative methods. The results of this research Media Kompas.com appear neutral in reporting the news by presenting many sources, imformants and imformation in supporting the news reported. However, on the other hand, Kompas.com indirectly made certain protests in certain directions with a point of view that aligned with the suspect Basuki Tjahaja Purnama on the news displayed by Kompas.com

Reading comprehension is a fundamental skill that enables individuals to understand and interpret written text. Many students encounter significant difficulties in comprehending text, leading to difficulties in academic performance and overall language development. This study aims to investigate the difficulties in reading comprehension faced by students at MA Patra Mandiri Plaju. The approach used in this study was qualitative. Participants in this study were grade XII students at MA Patra Mandiri Plaju, who were selected using homogeneous sampling techniques. Data were obtained through an interview process and then analyzed using thematic analysis. From the research that was conducted, several difficulties in reading comprehension faced by students at MA Patra Mandiri Plaju were found, namely difficulties in understanding the meaning of words, difficulties in understanding long sentences, difficulties in understanding the main idea, difficulties in making inferences, difficulties in understanding grammar, difficulties in understanding reading strategies, and difficulties in concentration.

Component skills and discourse frameworks of reading have identified characteristics of readers and texts that influence comprehension. However, these 2 frameworks have not previously been integrated in a comprehensive and systematic way to explain performance on any standardized assessment of reading comprehension that is in widespread use across a broad developmental spectrum. The current study undertook such an integration using the reading comprehension subtest of the Gates-McGinitie Reading Tests, investigating characteristics of the test’s reading passages and comprehension questions and the component reading skills of students in middle and high school (n = 1,190) in order to determine the extent to which each of these dimensions affect test performance, both on average and through interaction with one another. The component skills of reading included word reading, reading fluency, vocabulary, background knowledge, and working memory. Test questions were coded for their processing demands, specifically the need to recall information from test and to form text-based inferences, while text passages were measured on word frequency, sentence length, text cohesion, and genre. We found that better vocabulary and background knowledge were the most important reader characteristics in accounting for reading comprehension. The processing demands of test questions were not highly predictive of item difficulty. Rather, genre was the most important passage feature in explaining item difficulty. Reader-test interactions were present, but were not pronounced. We discuss the importance of these findings as they relate to the measurement of comprehension and the integration of component skills and text-discourse models of reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Objectives: This study investigated reading comprehension and reading comprehension monitoring abilities of children with vocabulary delay at the end of the first grade. Specifically, the study examined whether children with vocabulary delays could detect internal inconsistency errors, which are contradictory pieces of information in a short story, and whether they could correct those errors to make appropriate changes to the story at the beginning stage of reading. Methods: Fourteen children with vocabulary delay and 15 typically developing children participated in this study. Each child read 10 short stories without internal inconsistency errors and 10 stories with internal inconsistency errors. After reading the text, children were asked to find any inconsistent parts of the story and correct them. Results: The results showed that children with vocabulary delay performed worse on reading comprehension than their peers. They also scored statistically lower on both the error detection and error correction tasks in stories with internal inconsistency errors compared to typically developing children. For typically developing children only, there were significant correlations between reading comprehension and reading comprehension monitoring. Conclusion: Children with vocabulary delay exhibited difficulties in both reading comprehension and comprehension monitoring. Poor vocabulary knowledge can hinder their ability to recognize when a text is misunderstood or to apply effective strategies for resolving problems, ultimately leading to reading comprehension failure. This suggests that children with language disorders, including those with vocabulary delays, need to be assessed and provided with interventions for both reading comprehension and comprehension monitoring.