Removing interword spacing has been shown to disrupt lower-level oculomotor processes and word identification during text reading. However, the impact of these disruptions on higher-level processes remains unclear. To examine the influence of spacing on inferential processing, we monitored eye movements while participants read spaced and unspaced…

Background: We examined the influence of text and reader characteristics on sixth graders' inference generation. Methods: Eleven- to 12-year-old US monolingual English speakers (N = 71) and Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 81) read narrative and informational expository texts requiring an inference and answered an inference-tapping question after…

This article discusses two schemes for teaching writing in schools. One uses analysis of model texts into techniques and devices then application of these by students to their written compositions and one uses a process approach that includes pre-writing and exploring, drafting, sharing and discussing, revising and celebrating to exploit students'…

Reading comprehension is the goal of reading, and making inferences is vital. Authors usually expect readers to make multiple types of inferences, including anaphoric, background knowledge, predictive, and retrospective. Common core assessments include all of these, yet instructional materials focus mostly on only one type, retrospective. This…

Purpose: Complex features of science texts present idiosyncratic challenges for middle grade readers, especially in a post-Common Core educational world where students' learning is dependent on understanding informational text. The primary aim of this study was to explore how middle school readers process science texts and whether such…

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).…

Literacy is a critically important and contemporary issue for educators, scientists, and politicians. Efforts to overcome the challenges associated with illiteracy, and the subsequent development of literate societies, are closely related to those of poverty reduction and sustainable human development. In this paper, the authors examine literacy…

Recent research shows that reading comprehension relies heavily on prior knowledge. Far more than generic "reading skills" like drawing inferences, making predictions, and knowing the function of subheads, how well students learn from a nonfiction text depends on their background knowledge of the text's subject matter. And in a cyclical…

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…

The present study examined individual differences in the processing of different forms of figurative language. Sixty participants read sarcastic, metaphorical, and literal sentences embedded in story contexts while their eye movements were recorded, and responded to a text memory and an inference question after each story. Individual differences…

The Bechdel test, the author's student Marley explained, is named for the US graphic novelist and cartoonist Alison Bechdel. To pass the test, a work of fiction must contain at least one scene in which two or more women (preferably named characters) discuss something other than a male. Students who read from the canon of works regularly encounter…

This research synthesis was conducted to understand the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve learning from informational text for students with learning disabilities in elementary school (K-5). The authors identified 18 studies through a comprehensive search. The interventions were evaluated to determine treatment effects and to…

Comprehension tests often compare accuracy on inferential versus literal questions and find inferential harder than literal, and poor comprehenders performing worse than controls. Difficulties in integration are assumed to be the reason. This research explores another reason--differences in memory for the passage information underlying the…

An important purpose of reading literature is to move beyond the literal text to construct an interpretation of what the text conveys about the human condition and nature of the world. In two experiments, college students with no prior training in literary analysis read a short story and responded to one of four task instructions (plot, ambiguous,…

In this new edition of their groundbreaking book "Strategies That Work," Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis share the work and thinking they've done since the second edition came out a decade ago and offer new perspectives on how to explicitly teach thinking strategies so that students become engaged, thoughtful, independent readers.…