After briefly reviewing how reading is conceptualised in the "Progress in International Reading Literacy Study" and the English National Curriculum, this article examines two unofficial reading activities in a class of 10-11-year-olds' to see how far these activities match up with the official definitions of reading, or whether they…

Readers apply their own standards of coherence while reading text. Readers with a low standard of coherence are thought to find a sparse and incomplete representation more coherent than readers who employ a higher standard. This article reports 3 experiments that examined standards of coherence imposed by skilled and less-skilled readers by having…

As part of its proposal to the U.S. Department of Education, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) committed to developing Kindergarten through Grade 2 Model Content Frameworks for English language arts (ELA)/literacy (K-2 Model Content Frameworks) to serve as a bridge between the Common Core State Standards…

Explores aesthetic responses to literature by examining the responses of fifth graders to a variety of books and films. Finds three main characteristics of students' responses: picturing a story in their minds; extending a story or hypothesize about it while reading; and relating associations and feelings evoked while reading and responding.…

Suggests three levels of reading. The first is exemplified by E. D. Hirsch's prescriptive "cultural literacy." The second is interpretive, typified by the "strong reader." The third is critical and is best suited to dealing with the complexities of poetry. (ARH)

Illuminates patterns in responses to literature by analyzing one sixth grader's entries written in her literature response journal. Finds that the student's responses reveal her as an active reader and writer with unique thoughts, feelings. and opinions generated by quality children's literature. (MG)

According to Wolfgang Iser's "The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response," the meaning of a literary text is created by each individual reader in response to gaps, or indeterminacies, in the text. With the application of this theory to the two-year college classroom, teachers can show inexperienced readers how to discover the meaning of…

Examines the effects of increasing adolescents' awareness of their own response strategies to reading. Illustrates the importance of ensuring that all students discover for themselves not only what they have learned, but how they have learned it. (SR)

Puts forth Louise Rosenblatt's 1938 Reader-Response Theory as a dominant teaching approach in English education, with Rosenblatt's influence readily apparent in contemporary research. Asserts that English professors today can work the magic of the literary experience through the use of the Reader-Response Theory in the teaching of literature.…

A study examined the ways in which college readers interact with literary texts. The method of interviews and think-along protocols, in which a text was read aloud by the subject while he simultaneously verbalized his thoughts, was used to compare the reading processes of eight college freshman to those of eight masters students in literature who…

Studied reading comprehension demands in a seventh-grade social studies classroom to reveal existing classroom cultures and complexities surrounding expository text comprehension. Found that in the particular classroom, the textbook determined knowledge exploration and had a damaging pedagogical effect on the students' literacy practices.…

Learning logs, or reading response logs, have long been established as an effective reading strategy that helps students learn from text (Atwell, 1987; Blough & Berman, 1991; Calkins, 1986; Commander & Smith, 1996; Kuhrt & Farris, 1990; Reed, 1988; Sanders, 1985). In this paper, the author describes her experiences using learning logs as a…

To investigate how Mexican-American students constructed meaning from English texts when engaged in reading and writing activities, a study examined 12 fifth grade Mexican-American students who lived in a "barrio" with literacy in both Spanish and English. The aim was to tap the envisionments (text interpretations or understandings, and…

A study reanalyzed data from two previous studies to investigate (1) validity of imagery ratings and reports as measures of reader response to a story, and (2) similarity of final regression models for recall and imagery reports. Imagery and affect ratings of story paragraphs were found to predict both imagery reports and recall of a second,…

Suggests that reading students be taught to write symbolic codes alongside the text to identify new terms, similarities in ideas, cause-effect relationships, important or difficult ideas, etc.; and to use mnemonics to record their responses to the text (e.g., whether they were bored, confused, surprised, or in agreement). (PAA)