Cloze procedure is a family of testing and teaching methods that leave blanks in discourse and ask examinees to restore the missing elements. Edited and coauthored by award-winning scholars, Cloze and Coherence shows how and why cloze procedure is sensitive to discourse constraints, and it offers a comprehensive theory of semiotics showing what coherence is and reviewing a great deal of cloze research. It traces in particular the history of cloze research pertaining to studies of coherence from Hermann Ebbinghaus in the 1890s to Wilson L. Taylor in the 1950s until today. The research presented here aims to show that cloze scores tend to fall if discourse constraints are disrupted. Also explored are many subtle questions associated with this tendency. Populations discussed include native and nonnative speakers of English, native and nonnative speakers of French, and certain special populations such as deaf subjects and educable mentally retarded subjects. Contrary to some experts, it appears from the theory and the research that all of the normal subject populations as well as the special populations examined here benefit from the cognitive momentum gained from the episodic organization of ordinary discourse. This finding is sustained by research from Taylor, Oller et al., Cziko, Bachman, Jonz, and Taira. Further, some of Jonz's recent work shows why scrambling encyclopedic text (Timothy Shanahan and colleagues) failed to produce any significant decrement in cloze scores. Jonz demonstrated empirically that some texts (just as Gary A. Cziko had predicted) are not made more difficult by scrambling their sentences because the sentences of those texts are, in some cases, arranged in the manner of a list rather than a logically or chronologically structured series. Scrambling the list, therefore, has no significant impact. The final chapter of this study gives a comprehensive review of research reportedly showing that cloze is not sensitive to coherence. The authors show that all those efforts suffer from fatal flaws. Cloze and Coherence offers advances of two kinds. First, a better theoretical basis for experimental research on discourse comprehension and on literacy and language acquisition is presented, which stems from a fleshed-out semiotic theory. Second, experimental advances, whose results are published here for the first time, appear in various studies by Jonz, Chihara et al., Oller et al., and Taira. This work is well researched and illustrated. It includes figures, tables, appendices, a glossary, and an index. It will be a valuable tool for language and literacy testers and teachers.

A hands-on guide for anyone who teaches writing to students with learning disabilities This valuable resource helps teachers who want to sharpen their skills in analyzing and teaching writing to students with learning disabilities. The classroom-tested, research-proven strategies offered in this book work with all struggling students who have difficulties with writing-even those who have not been classified as learning disabled. The book offers a review of basic skills-spelling, punctuation, and capitalization-and includes instructional strategies to help children who struggle with these basics. The authors provide numerous approaches for enhancing student performance in written expression. They explore the most common reasons students are reluctant to write and offer helpful suggestions for motivating them. Includes a much-needed guide for teaching and assessing writing skills with children with learning disabilities Contains strategies for working with all students that struggle with writing Offers classroom-tested strategies, helpful information, 100+ writing samples with guidelines for analysis, and handy progress-monitoring charts Includes ideas for motivating reluctant writers Mather is an expert in the field of learning disabilities and is the best-selling author of Essentials of Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement Assessment

This book constitutes the refereed conference proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Mining Intelligence and Knowledge Exploration, MIKE 2019, held in Goa, India, in December 2019. The 31 full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 83 submissions. The accepted papers were chosen on the basis of research excellence, which provides a body of literature for researchers involved in exploring, developing, and validating learning algorithms and knowledge-discovery techniques. Accepted papers were grouped into various subtopics including evolutionary computation, knowledge exploration in IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, image processing, pattern recognition, speech processing, information retrieval, natural language processing, social network analysis, security, fuzzy rough sets, and other areas.

Reading in Chinese as an Additional Language focuses on Chinese literacy acquisition, which has been considered most difficult by both learners and teachers of Chinese as an additional language (CAL). Three major areas are covered: (1) acquisition of Chinese characters; (2) reading comprehension subskills and reader’s identity; (3) reading instruction and assessment. The first part delves into the foundation of Chinese literacy development—how to learn and teach Chinese characters. The second part examines various learners’ reading comprehension subskills, as well as the evolution of learners’ literacy identity. The third part explores effective instructional methods and assessment practices for CAL reading development. Theoretically, this book provides frameworks and evidence from both cognitive and sociocultural perspectives on the nature of CAL reading development. Pedagogically, the book showcases how to teach and assess CAL reading skills. Methodologically, this book includes empirical studies using both qualitative and quantitative methods. In terms of scope, the book covers a much broader spectrum of issues about CAL reading research and classroom teaching than has previously been available. Writing is also discussed in several chapters. In terms of technology, the book includes discussion on how the use of computers, the Internet, and social media impacts students’ Chinese literacy acquisition. This book will help CAL researchers and educators better understand the nature of CAL reading development and become well informed about CAL classroom teaching and assessment, including the application of interactive approaches to teaching and assessing diverse reading skills.