This article draws on Philip Barnard's model of the interactions between theory and practice, between basic and applied research, to investigate the paradox of reading as an experience both private and public. It uses internal reader experience as a starting point for exploration, evoking the concept of a readerly sense of presence as a selection…

This article shares insights from a symposium celebrating the retirement of P. David Pearson, one of the most influential reading researchers of the last half-century. Presenters addressed the nature, instruction, and assessment of reading comprehension, teacher learning and comprehension, and the texts and contexts of comprehension. Collectively,…

In this critique, race is centralized to draw attention to the role it plays in the complex evolution of response to intervention, past and present. I use a critical race theory analytical lens to focus on how the dominant narrative serves as a framework within institutional and political structures in support of the approach. A brief overview of…

Graphic novels in the K-12 classroom are most often used to motivate marginalized readers because of the lower text load and assumption of easy reading. This assumption has thus far been unexplored by reading research. This qualitative multiple-case study utilized think-aloud protocols in a new attention-mapping activity to better understand how…

The field of literacy education has long been concerned with the question of how to help classroom teachers improve their practices so that students will improve as readers. Although there is consensus on what characterizes effective professional development, the reading research on which this consensus is based most often is small scale and…

This article reports on a study of the responses of a second-grade class to the page breaks in contemporary picturebooks. In a picturebook, the text and accompanying illustrations are divided into a series of facing pages called openings, and the divisions between the openings are called page breaks or turns. Unlike a novel, in which the page…

This paper begins with the assumption that the interpretive practices people acquire in social worlds often transfer to their stances toward and interpretations of worlds encountered in literature (Beach, Thein, & Parks, 2007). The goal of this paper is to identify the history and logic behind one student's negative, ambivalent, and positive…

The purpose of this study was to examine a model of early reading acquisition that hinged on a phenomenon seldom explored in beginning reading research: a child's concept of word in text. Previous research in early literacy acquisition has centered on the role phonological awareness--the ability to consciously attend to and manipulate the sound…

Describes three experiments that examined the trade-off between text-based and task-based importance. Defines text-based and task-based importance. Concludes that undergraduate subjects spontaneously adopted an interactive, compensatory strategy in which task-based importance superseded the role of text-based importance. Discusses implications for…

Notes that many phonological terms are found in contemporary literature on reading, and some inconsistencies are apparent in how they are used and understood. Presents definitions of many of these important words and several dozen related terms (for a total of 51 terms). Emphasizes the historical and conceptual links between similar terms, because…

Delves into the birth, childhood, and adolescence of the National Reading Conference, with direct attention given to the germination of the "Journal of Reading Behavior," the former title of this journal. Notes the National Reading Conference has a long and honored history spanning a period of nearly 50 years. (RS)

Examines first and second graders' decoding of one-syllable words and nonwords, each comprised of a high- to moderate-utility onset and a high-utility rime. Finds the construct validity of decoding items varied, depending on whether they were words or nonwords. Notes a superior construct validity of words over nonwords as decoding items. (RS)

Argues that the National Reading Panel is too narrow in its presentation of scientifically valid reading research. Presents a sample of practices that enjoy support but were ignored by the panel and qualitative research that was out of bounds because of the methodological guidelines of the panel. Concludes that most of the cutting edge of the…

Investigates four developing readers' text processing by asking them to think aloud as they read five narratives and five expository texts over the course of a school year. Identifies five general categories of processing. Finds that while reading narratives, students hypothesized most of the time; and while reading expository texts, they…

Finds in year 1, children showed effects of neighborhood size in high frequency words read in stories and in low frequency words read in lists and stories; in year 2, rimes from large neighborhoods were read more accurately than rimes from other neighborhoods; and by year 3, effects on low-frequency words continued, but not for high-frequency…