The article explored the impact of topic background knowledge (TBK) on children's language ability development and reading-related emotional factors. TBK refers to the foundational knowledge that children possess concerning a specific subject or topic. The content schemata theory suggests that a high level of TBK facilitates information processing…

Words can be informative linguistic markers of psychological constructs. The purpose of this study is to examine associations between word use and the process of making meaningful connections to a text while reading (i.e., inference generation). To achieve this purpose, think-aloud data from third-fifth grade students (N = 218) reading narrative…