The aim of this study is to examine how critically and creatively the students express their feelings and thoughts by using emoticons. In the first part, how the students expressed what they read by using emoticons was examined. In order to assess their skills for reading comprehension and the skills for expressing what they understood through…

This paper highlights how the social world understandings of Rey, an 11th grade Latino student, supported his exploration into and insights of a short story. This work is grounded in the Cultural Modelling Framework. This framework provides students with the chance to acquire important comprehension strategies needed to interpret complex fiction…

This article reports an empirical study conducted in a Taiwanese English as a second language university class. Reader response theory is the theoretical framework guiding the study. Fifty-nine university students were encouraged to collaboratively create multimodal responses to a classic English reading. Taking an aesthetic reading stance, the…

This article describes a model used to explore cultural understanding in English as a foreign language reading in a developing country, namely Argentina. The model is designed to investigate, analyse and describe EFL readers' processes of cultural understanding in a specific context. Cultural understanding in reading is typically investigated…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate students' perceptions of their experiences with literature circles across elementary grades. A stratified random sample of 24 diverse students in grades one, three, four, and five were individually interviewed to obtain perceptions of their attitudes toward literature circles and their…

This study examined the motivation to read of children in grades two through six. All children in the study were strong in their literal comprehension of narrative text. Some were equally strong in their ability to respond thoughtfully to the text (Blue Group); others struggled to respond to questions requiring them to think about the implications…

What happens when children come across texts that push the boundaries of what they expect to encounter when they pick up a picture book? There exists a genre of nontraditional picture books, commonly referred to as "postmodern picture books," which is characterized by a variety of alternative literary and illustrative devices. Given that…

Reading comprehension plays a key role in academic success in today's classrooms. Literature Circles (LCs), a learner-centered collaborative reading activity, brings together the ideas of cooperative learning, independent reading, and reader response theory to enhance students' reading comprehension as well as their motivation toward learning…

Examines the nature of engagement with informational text by exploring four gifted students' responses to children's information books and informational storybooks. Indicates that these children expressed a variety of reasons for reading non-fiction and held interesting perceptions and strong opinions about informational content. Finds that…

Reports the impact of metadiscourse on sixth grade students' learning and attitudes. Finds that low-comfort students learn more when informational metadiscourse is presented in interpersonal voice and high-comfort students learn less. Finds that students' attitudes are more tolerant of opinions if they read just one type of metadiscourse. (KEH)

Explains a case study in Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA), a process which enables readers to discuss the underlying logic of their miscues. Concludes that RMA is a powerful tool in crafting and guiding reading instruction. Notes that when the student subject was encouraged to use reading strategies that worked for him, he became empowered as a…

Suggests that viewing aesthetic reading as a process whereby readers and writers attempt to "make contact" and collaborate in making meaning forces one to adopt research strategies that go beyond measuring reading comprehension, and offers two studies to illustrate these ideas. (JC)

Examines four fifth-grade students' stances and their responses to a narrative text in three classroom activities--a peer-led discussion group, a story map activity, and written responses. Investigates issues regarding the accessibility of shifts in stance for the students. Calls into question L. Rosenblatt's construct of the aesthetic-efferent…

Examines the strategies first grade students use when reading two types of materials--basal and student-authored. Finds that children used more efficient strategies and had better comprehension when reading student-authored stories. (MM)