This paper reports on a case study that explored the effect of an English-as-Second Language (ESL) computer program at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), South Africa. The case study explored participants’ perceptions, attitudes and beliefs regarding the ESL reading enhancement program, Reading ExcellenceTM. The study found that participants experienced the program in a positive light. The...

Since 2008, the government of South Australia has been using a Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach to achieve their strategic plan (South Australia Strategic Plan of 2004). In this commentary, we summarize some of the strengths and contributions of the innovative evaluation framework that was developed by an embedded team of academic researchers. To inform how the use of HiAP is evaluated mo...

The text of the commentary to Georgics Benvenuto da Imola allows illuminate intertextual relationships between and Giovanni Boccaccio. Through a series examples that highlight clear dependence on Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, De montibus Zibaldone membranaceo, aim is show Benvenuto's intellectual cultural debt preceptor Boccaccio, thus configuring Imolese as personally known disciple one first r...

This commentary focuses on the notion of "what works" to reduce health inequalities. It begins by noting the need for and presence of a wide range of methodologies and approaches internationally. It then argues that it is useful to map out these contributions and those in the present Supplement against a set of principles (Macintyre, 2007) to guide the selection and implementation of public hea...

Over the last 15 years, researchers have become increasingly interested in children’s motivation to read. Because reading is an exigent activity that often involves choice, motivation is crucial to reading engagement. The purpose of this case study was to investigate student attitudes toward reading at summer reading clinic through an urban teaching college in upstate New York. It was hypothesi...

In this paper, we illustrate the successful implementation of pre-class reading assignments through a social learning platform that allows students to discuss the reading online with their classmates. We show how the platform can be used to understand how students are reading before class. We find that, with this platform, students spend an above average amount of time reading (compared to that...

A s a director of a university diagnostic reading clinic, I see children of all ages who, for one reason or another, are making poor progress in learning to read. Our job in the reading clinic is to determine the nature and source of the child’s reading problem and suggest (and implement) instructional interventions for helping the child improve. Often the children we see in our clinic demonstr...

Despite the growing number of studies highlighting the complex process of acquiring second language (L2) word recognition skills, comparatively little research has examined the relationship between word recognition and passage-level reading ability in L2 learners; further, the existing results are inconclusive. This study aims to help fill the gap. Three word recognition subcomponents (decoding...

A survey of the literature was made to determine the skills involved in reading comprehension that are deemed most important by authorities. Multiple-choice test items were constructed to measure each of nine skills thus identified as basic. The inrcrcorrclarions of the ninc skill scores were factored. each skill being weighted in the initial matrix roughly in proportion to its importance in re...