Welcome to the Reading Research Recap!
I am Dr. Neena Saha, Research Advisor at MetaMetrics. My focus is bridging the research-practice gap so that you can access useful resources that support reading success, expand awareness of the latest reading research, and inform your teaching and learning strategies. This monthly compendium offers the most relevant and must-read research impacting the reading and learning landscape, including easy-to-view digestible highlights. We want the data and findings to be as useful to you as possible, so please do connect with me with any ideas and comments for next month. Enjoy the latest Reading Research Recap!
📚 Deep Dive: Theory of Mind and Text Comprehension
Love is in the air with this Valentine’s Day Edition of the Recap, where we’re exploring how understanding others’ thoughts and feelings isn’t just crucial for romance – it’s essential for reading! This ability, known as “Theory of Mind” (ToM), has been credited for humanity’s cognitive edge. But what role does it play in how we understand text? Let’s dive into this fascinating new meta-analysis.
Rationale for This New Meta-Analysis
Recent reading models suggest Theory of Mind (ToM) plays a crucial role in comprehension. But with studies showing mixed results about this connection, researchers turned to meta-analysis – combining multiple studies to reveal broader patterns and resolve conflicting findings.
Methods
After conducting a rigorous search of the literature, the research team pooled 47 independent samples including 5,123 participants aged 3 to 70 years of age (M = 10.53 years).
Results
The findings were clear: Theory of Mind and Text Comprehension are meaningfully connected (r = .33). This relationship proved remarkably stable across all variables – from different types of tasks and age groups to geographic locations and study designs. Even more intriguing, the connection appears to work both ways: ToM skills may enhance reading comprehension, and reading comprehension may strengthen ToM abilities. (However, this study can’t confirm which causes which – that would require experimental research- but see below!)
Take-Home Message
Looking for the perfect Valentine? Maybe add a reading test to your dating checklist! Or if you’ve already found “the one,” share some books – it might help them better understand what’s on your mind!
But seriously, this research has exciting implications beyond romance: Theory of Mind matters for text comprehension, and the relationship works both ways. With evidence suggesting ToM can be trained in young children and reading can boost social – emotional skills in older students, we might be looking at powerful new ways to enhance both reading and social understanding.
That’s all for February, but be sure to check out all the interesting new research below that came out last month!
-Neena
Teacher Professional Development, Training, Education Policy
- Some Comply While Some Defy: Elementary Teachers’ Responses to Leadership Mandates on Reading Comprehension Instruction
- Reading Interventionists’ Representations of the Science of Reading in Interactions with Preservice Teachers
- What Works for Whom: Exploring the Students, Settings, and Outcomes in What Works Clearinghouse Study Data
- Improving Student Teacher Preparedness in Reading Instruction
- Embracing Language Diversity: An Exploration Elementary Teachers’ Perception of African American English (Dissertation, not yet peer-reviewed)
Foundational Skills
- The Effects of a Print-Rich Literacy Environment on Developing Early Reading Skills in the Foundation Phase Classroom
- Home literacy interventions and children’s emergent literacy and oral language skills: A systematic review and discussion of underlying mechanisms
- Fostering Reading Success: Investigating Connected Phonation as a Key Strategy for Word Reading Fluency
- Sound–symbol learning and the relationship to spelling in first-grade children (open access!)
- Frequency Distribution of Graphemic-Phonemic Correspondences of Vowels in English Children’s Literature (Thesis, not yet peer-reviewed)
- The role of context in the reading of English vowels: Evidence from ‹s› clusters
- Are the effects of SRSD for first grade writers moderated by initial skills and instructional tier?
Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, Reading Difficulties, At-risk Readers, Etc.
- Defining Developmental Language Disorder and Dyslexia in Schools: A Mixed-Methods Analysis
- Impaired visual and verbal statistical learning in children with Dyslexia in a transparent orthography
- Reading comprehension resiliency in adolescents with and without dyslexia relates to vocabulary, listening comprehension and socioeconomic status
- Small or absent Visual Word Form Area is a trait of dyslexia (preprint, does not appear to be peer-reviewed yet)
Fluency
- Supporting Literacy Assessment in West Africa: Using State-of-the-Art Speech Models to Assess Oral Reading Fluency
- A Comparison of Reading Fluency Interventions: Group Repeated Reading and Rapid Read (Dissertation, not yet peer-reviewed)
Comprehension
- Vocabulary Instruction During Elementary Classroom Discourse: Observing 1st Through 3rd Grade Teachers’ Instructional Practices
- Prosody! When intonation helps and there is an effect… on listening comprehension in children
- Learning spellings and meanings: Longitudinal relations to reading (open access!)
- Reading from Paper, Computers, and Tablets in the First Grade: The Role of Comprehension Monitoring
- Interactions of Decoding, Working Memory, and Mind Wandering on Reading Comprehension
- Feasibility of the Knowledge, Language, and Inquiry (K.L.I.) intervention for multilingual English learners (open access!)
- How the usage of the OK4R Reading Platform relates to learning efficacy, attitude, and cognitive development
- The Effects of Multiple Vocabulary Exposures on Sixth Graders’ Reading Comprehension (Thesis, not yet peer-reviewed)
Neuroscience/Neurobiology of Reading
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