Reading literacy is a multidimensional construct in terms of text and reading processes. Much research has examined the divisibility of the processes underlying reading, but they have treated the rest of the construct as unitary. This study extends the examination of dimensionality to a neglected area in literacy studies. It tests reading models…

By asking questions, students can practice many cognitive processes, and these processes may reflect clues about their thinking skills. In order to understand students' cognitive levels in thinking, questions can be used as agents. Doing so, this study focuses on examining students' questions in terms of cognitive levels of Bloom's revised…

We examined longhand note taking strategies when reading and summarizing a source text that was formatted with bullets or that was presented in a single paragraph. We analyzed cognitive effort when reading the source text, when jotting notes, when reading the notes, and when composing the summary, as well as time spent in these activities and the…

Mira Bai, a saint-poet of North India is an important figure in medieval Hindi literature. Her "bhajan"-s (songs) profoundly represent the transforming of consciousness working through conceptual metaphors which fall in the realm of religious poetry wherein target domains are generally abstract. Since, the working of the mind is more…

Although keystroke logging promises to provide a valuable tool for writing research, it can often be difficult to relate logs to underlying processes. This article describes the procedures and measures that the authors developed to analyze a sample of 80 keystroke logs, with a view to achieving a better alignment between keystroke-logging measures…

Cognitive interest is a motivation to acquire information that is caused by a cognitive and emotional state of uncertainty about the meaning of a text. It can, therefore, be expected to increase if a text raises an issue in readers' mind without resolving it. In support of this expectation, the results of 3 experiments show that the readers'…

One of the analyses carried out within the University of Uppsala (Sweden) study, "LSP Texts in the 20th Century," classified the cognitive text content into five different cognitive worlds: the scientific, the practical, the object, the private, and the external. This paper investigated patterns of distribution in the texts of these…

Word processors have been shown to favor a local perspective over a global perspective on the text during writing. Recently, advanced outline processors or "idea processors" have appeared that allow the writer to represent and handle structural aspects of a text so that the writer may compose the text within an outline and experiment with…

Research about the interrelationship between reading comprehension and written production is reported that is assumed to contribute to teaching syllabi in these areas, by the nature of the processes that underlie reading and writing. Reading and writing are shown to be two sides of the same cognitive process. (26 references) (LB)

This paper presents a new computer program called Zigzag, suited for investigating readers' mental activity during text processing. The program permits data collection of two different kinds, namely reading time and reading errors for each of the words read. The second dependent measure, reading errors, provides a better control of the readers'…

Describes the storyline instructional strategy and its application to social studies. Storyline consists of incorporating content area material into an evolving narrative with subsequent material added to the story. Includes examples from grades 2, 9, and 11 storyline instructional units. (MJP)

Discussion of text segmenting and comprehension highlights a study of elementary students in Australia that tested two hypotheses, one concerning reading abilities and one concerning information processing skills involved in syntactic analysis. Tests that measured vocabulary, comprehension, and processing skills are described, results are…

Presents the results of two studies where children were taught to identify textual cues, syntactic and semantic, in order to locate main ideas. The children also built graphic representations of these structures and were taught relevant questions to ask regarding comprehension. Results showed significant improvement, especially with older…

Describes a long-term project where middle school students were taught to visually represent key text ideas through idea-mapping techniques. Instruction was inserted in the content area curriculum along with regular textbooks and supplementary material. Positive effects were found in recall, comprehension, and learning. (MJP)