Graphic novels are a form of authentic text that have started to gain widespread acceptance in the English language arts field and have been shown to increase students' motivation to read and engage deeply with texts. By integrating text with pictures, graphic novels have the advantage of requiring a lighter cognitive load than traditional…

This study investigated whether presenting a picture before reading can encourage situation-model construction. We compared two conditions (n = 30) which differed in whether a picture of the initial situation described in a narrative text was presented before reading (i.e. pictorial-support condition) or not (i.e. no-picture condition).…

Previous research on the redundancy principle in multimedia learning has shown that although exact correspondence between on-screen text and narration generally impairs learning, brief labels within an animation can improve learning. To clarify and extend the theoretical and practical implications of these results, the authors of the present…

The reported study compared the instructional effectiveness of Modern English explanatory interpretations of Shakespearean play extracts integrated line by line into original Elizabethan English text, with a conventional unguided original text condition. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the explanatory notes group reported a lower cognitive load and…

Teaching narrative text selections is an important part of the middle grades English curriculum. As middle grades educators search for ways to best support their students' reading, it is important to consider carefully the effects of various approaches to teaching literature. This study focused on the two most popular approaches to teaching…

The purpose of this study was to validate and extend the findings of an exhaustive literature search in Year 1 and a meta-analysis in Year 2 of a 3-year project in which nine (9) small-group discussion approaches were identified. Having identified parameters of discussion that were, to a greater or lesser extent, present in these nine discussion…

Reading comprehension instruction in many classrooms focuses on teacher-generated questions which actually measure comprehension of specific text rather than developing metacognitive strategies for comprehending all text. Explicit instruction in the metacognitive strategies of making text connections, predicting, and sequencing, was evaluated for…

Reading comprehension can be more effectively taught using new instructional frameworks--such as explicit comprehension instruction--rather than the basal reading model. Traditionally, comprehension has been taught through a process of mentioning the skill that students should apply, practicing the skill in workbooks, and assessing student…

Reporting on a piece of small-scale research, this article considers the notion of a community of enquiry within the context of a Year 2 class. It suggests that the community of enquiry approach can provide a framework to support young children, comprehension in literacy and also has clear benefits in regard to young children's citizenship…