During a classroom-based study that featured wordless and almost wordless picturebooks, instruction and adult mediation communicated to Kindergarten children that elements of visual art, design, and layout are fundamental to meaning-making when transacting with this format of literature. The illustration techniques described by Ray (2010) were…

Word is important in Chinese reading. However, when inter-word spaces are inserted into Chinese text, there is no facilitation or disruption to adults' reading. Researchers argued that there was a trade-off between word segmentation facilitation and disruption due to format unfamiliarity. To assess the trade-off hypothesis, in Experiment 1, we…

The design of textbooks used in teaching and learning processes is of great importance to each level of education from pre-primary through to higher education. Textbooks, especially at primary level, include lots of visual images. It is, therefore, of crucial importance to resort to effective and proper ways of using visual design elements in…

This study expands and complicates ideas about what makes text complex in picturebooks. The study involved multimodal analysis of one visually and scientifically complex picturebook, "Gravity," by Jason Chin. The authors also analyzed a transcript of three third graders discussing the text. This analysis illuminated how student talk…

Purpose: This paper aims to present three girls' visual annotations and digital responses that restory a scene in the picturebook I'm New Here. The authors focus on how children use multimodal tools to reflect their critical knowledge of the world by illuminating how this group of girls responded to and incorporated broader social issues.…

This article combines theory on comics, narrative, and discursive psychology and analyses how the gutter is co-constructed for storytelling in classroom interaction. Closure of the gutter has previously been treated as a cognitive aspect. Here, interactional video data are analysed, with participants organizing ten separate comic panels. The…

This study investigated the effect of font style and character spacing on reading performance of 25 second graders, measured by an oral reading fluency test. The effect of font type and character spacing on reading performance was analyzed with ANOVA. Font style did affect reading performance. Character spacing may be relevant for longer reading…

Textbooks remain as major learning aids in all levels of education worldwide. Thus, textbooks must constantly be subjected to critical analysis in order to establish their curricular usefulness. This paper analyzed four commercial science textbooks designed for third grade Filipino learners. The four textbooks were analyzed according to…

This study examined 30 second graders' patterns of attention to graphics (e.g., maps, diagrams, photographs, illustrations) and their illustration extensions (e.g., captions, labels) in two informational texts, and how students processed these items (e.g., creating narrative or evaluating). Results indicate that students do tend to study different…

The data featured in this article were gathered during a classroom-based research project with Grade 2 (six- and seven-year-old) children. The overall purposes of the study included exploration of how the development of young children's understanding of elements of visual art and design would affect their comprehension, interpretation, and…

Books designed for beginning readers typically intermix text with illustrations in close proximity. Prior research suggests this standard layout may reduce literacy skills due to increased attentional competition between text and illustrations. The current study extends this work by examining whether manipulations to the book layout can enhance…

This research aims at analysing technical specifications in a sample of Egyptian and French electronic storybooks (e-storybooks), to identify similarities and differences in technical specifications of children's e-storybooks and create a verified analysis list to be used for evaluation of e-storybooks. For this purpose, 32 e-storybooks in CD…

This study examined relationships between reading comprehension, known predictors of reading comprehension (i.e., cognitive flexibility, fluency, reading motivation and attitude, vocabulary), and graphical device comprehension. One-hundred fifty-six third graders completed assessments of known predictor variables and an assessment tapping…