This study aimed to explore the role of inference making in the relation between vocabulary knowledge (breadth and depth) and reading comprehension for 487 ninthgrade Chinese EFL students who were categorized as either struggling or adequate. Path analysis was used to examine both direct and mediated effects. The results indicated a statistically significant indirect effect of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension, mediated by inference making, for the entire participant group. However, there were notable differences between the struggling and adequate readers, as evidenced by distinct path diagrams. For struggling readers, the indirect effect of vocabulary breadth on reading comprehension through inference making was significant, while that of vocabulary depth was not significant. For adequate readers, both vocabulary breadth and depth directly explained reading comprehension. These results are discussed in the EFL context, encompassing assessment and instructional implications for EFL readers with varying levels of reading abilities.

In today’s digital era, tablets are gaining popularity as reading devices. However, few studies have compared reading e-books on tablets with reading printed books and regular classroom instruction for language learning. To evaluate the role of tablets in reading and analyze the possibilities, the current study examined 97 elementary school students learning English as a foreign language in South Korea. These students were taught English once or twice a week for 11 weeks based on extensive reading using tablets (n = 42), printed books (n = 32), or regular textbook-based instruction as control (n = 23). The results indicate that literal level reading comprehension was improved the largest in the tablet group compared with the other groups. By contrast, improvements in inferential reading comprehension and grammatical knowledge were greater in those reading printed books than in the tablet group. The findings suggest that the print medium was superior for deep reading and digital texts were better for quick and shallow learning.

Numerous studies have supported the simple view of reading by showing the significant predictive roles of oral language comprehension ability and decoding skills in the reading comprehension of monolinguals and second language learners. However, little is known about its applicability to young foreign language learners who do not have much access to the target language and literacy input outside the school and especially those whose first and second languages are typologically different. This study was designed to examine the contribution of English oral language comprehension ability and decoding skills to the reading comprehension of fifth-grade Korean EFL learners. In doing so, the indirect effects of oral language ability and phonological awareness were also considered, and English reading fluency and Korean reading comprehension abilities were controlled for. The findings not only support the simple view of reading but also highlight the indirect effects of oral language comprehension ability and phonological awareness on reading comprehension abilities via the effects of decoding skills.

As research evidence for the facilitative effects of reading strategies on reading comprehension has been accumulating, research and pedagogical interests in prereading strategies such as prediction and schema activation are increasing. Yet, little research evidence of how actual performance on such tasks may be related to reading comprehension is sparse. This study explores whether prediction abilities and content schema are related to Korean middle school EFL learners’ reading comprehension abilities in English, and whether such potential relations may differ for factual and inferential comprehension. The study participants were one hundred thirty-seven Korean seventh grade students, and their performance on schema activation, prediction, and reading comprehension abilities was investigated, while controlling for their overall language proficiency and literacy skills. The findings indicated that although both prediction abilities and content schema facilitated reading comprehension, prediction abilities were a relatively stronger predictor of both factual and inferential comprehension. The results further suggest the need to provide effective trainings on pre-reading strategies.

The purpose of this study is to examine how reading motivation varies in its prediction of reading comprehension in Korean (L1) and English (L2) (with parental involvement being controlled for), and how reading motivation in each language is associated with language proficiency. Participants consisted of 289 EFL middle school students in South Korea. Three questionnaires and four language tests were employed to measure learners' reading motivation, parental involvement, language proficiency, and reading comprehension in their L1 and L2. Results indicated that L2 reading performance was positively predicted by both intrinsic motivation and grades/utility, whereas the only positive predictor of L1 reading comprehension was intrinsic motivation. Moreover, in both L1 and L2, the high-proficiency group was found to exhibit significantly stronger intrinsic and extrinsic motivation than the low group; the high group's intrinsic motivation was significantly stronger than the middle group; and the middle and low groups differed significantly in extrinsic motivation.

Despite the general understanding of the prominent role of basic reading sub-skills, such as decoding abilities and reading fluency, in the reading comprehension of younger and proficient first and second language readers, little is known about the role of these skills in older and less skilled readers in foreign language contexts. The present study was designed to investigate how decoding skills and reading fluency relate to the reading comprehension of such readers, and to identify the relative strengths between the two. Two hundred twenty two Korean high school students participated, and their performance on decoding, reading fluency, and reading comprehension tasks was analyzed. The results showed that both decoding skills and reading fluency were strongly correlated to reading comprehension. Moreover, between the two fundamental reading sub-skills, decoding skills outperformed reading fluency in explaining reading comprehension, making a unique contribution beyond the effects of reading fluency. These findings suggest that a basic skill like word decoding still deserves instructional attention even at the secondary schools in EFL contexts.

This study examined whether vocabulary knowledge has meaningful effects on reading comprehension of Korean high school EFL learners and investigated which specific type of vocabulary knowledge, between vocabulary breadth and depth, plays a bigger role in reading comprehension when the learners’ English language proficiency is taken into account. The participants of this study were ninety eight high school EFL learners in Seoul, Korea, and they were tested on a series of measures tapping on their reading comprehension abilities and vocabulary knowledge in two different dimensions (vocabulary breadth and depth). Their listening comprehension abilities were also measured in order to control for the effects of general oral language comprehension abilities known to be the foremost contributor to reading comprehension and thus to enable focused analysis of the role of vocabulary knowledge. The study findings revealed that 1) vocabulary knowledge itself played a critical role in predicting reading comprehension abilities even after controlling for their listening comprehension abilities and that 2) compared to vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth played a relatively more important role in predicting reading comprehension, regardless of the learners’ language proficiency. The findings provide important implications for vocabulary and reading comprehension instructions for Korean EFL students.

This study examined how four different constructed response formats of reading comprehension tests (cloze, recall, summary, and translation), developed based on the two texts with different reading difficulty, exert effects on EFL students’ reading test performance; and also investigated how those effects, if any, are differentiated with respect to the participants’ language proficiency levels. The total of 437 college students (220 male and 217 female students) participated in the current study. The test data was submitted to statistical treatment. The findings were that the four different response formats assessed different aspects of reading comprehension; the two texts with different text difficulty elicited different reading comprehension performance; and there were complicated interactions between the two variables of response format and text difficulty across the participants’ language proficiency levels. It is suggested that classroom teachers have to take it into consideration when planning to develop a reading comprehension test for EFL learners: how to choose reading texts that will be included in the test, considering an appropriate level of text difficulty and test formats to be engaged in order to assess students’ reading comprehension ability more accurately.

This study investigated whether the simple view of reading framework is supported among Upper elementary Korean EFL learners. Specifically, the relative contributive power of two emergent literacy factors, word decoding and linguistic comprehension abilities, which have been identified as the main determinants of successful reading comprehension, was examined. Ninety nine fifth grade students in Korean elementary school participated in this research, and their decoding skills, listening comprehension abilities, and reading comprehension in English were measured. The findings revealed that both English decoding skills and linguistic comprehension ability were significant predictors of their English reading comprehension, which supports the simple view of reading within the Korean EFL context. Specifically, decoding skill explained more of the variance, compared to linguistic comprehension, in reading comprehension when controlling for each other. The result is discussed in terms of the overall development of L2 proficiency and the role of L2 exposure in L2 reading comprehension development.

This study explores the effects of reading material types in sustained silent reading on Korean EFL learners, focusing on their reading speed and comprehension. Reading materials are divided into four types: longer texts with Korean vocabulary glosses, longer texts without the glosses, short texts, and a mixture of the three text types. For this research, an seven-month-long sustained silent reading program was developed for high school students. The participants were divided into four groups according to the types of reading texts they were to read. The reading rates and reading comprehension were measured before and after the program was implemented. The results were as follows: First, the gain in reading rates was most noticeable in the group reading longer texts with the vocabulary glosses. Second, there was a statistically significant difference in reading comprehension before and after the program was implemented. The group which read a mixture of the three reading text types showed the most remarkable gain in comprehension. The findings of this study suggest the need for further research on the relationship between reading comprehension and reading rates, and how to incorporate sustained silent reading into the reading curriculum.

Youn-Kyoung Lee. 2016. The Effect of Discourse Markers on EFL Reading Comprehension. Studies in Modern Grammar 90, 99-115. The present study aimed at examining the effect of macro- and micro-discourse markers in EFL academic reading comprehension. The study involved 70 college students, enrolling the ‘Intermediate English Reading Course,’ and they were from diverse majors. Of 70 participants, half (n=35) read a text with discourse markers and the other half (n=35) read a text without discourse markers. The findings of the study revealed that discourse markers played an important role in English reading comprehension. Compared to the group without discourse markers, the group with discourse makers comprehended significantly more information from English academic reading in an accurate manner. The present study makes an important contribution to the current literature on EFL reading comprehension, by providing the additional empirical evidence concerning the effect of macro-and micro discourse markers as well as the combination of both on English reading comprehension.