Describes the multidisciplinary nature of children's literature as a field of study. Suggests research in children's literature encompasses a diverse set of methodologies and theoretical perspectives. Discusses research on text, research on child readers, contexts that support engagement, and research needs. (RS)

Two theoretical perspectives are woven together to frame an approach to classroom reading instruction. Viewing reading instruction from a literary perspective and a psychological perspective has the potential to help students understand the distinctions between different text types and the various purposes for reading--information, enjoyment, and…

This paper first gives a brief chronological overview of reading theory development and a short introduction to schema theory, and then comprehensively reviews, comments, and synthesizes research-based studies, published between 1980 and 2002, that examined the effect of text structure (reader effect and text effect) on L1 and L2 reading…

Reviews research about the uses readers and writers make of text structure schemata and, additionally, about what reading-writing relationship research and collaborative learning research suggest for designing instruction to build schemata for text structure. Describes one in-process research study that attempts to address these issues. (SR)