This qualitative study surfaced beliefs around reading instruction and reading development at the onset of an elementary literacy methods course. Prior understandings and knowledge around reading instruction and reading acquisition emerge through various experiences and have the potential to contradict notions presented by teacher educators. This…

Background: A significant portion of adults struggle to read at a basic level. Word reading (defined here as decoding and word recognition) appears to play a pivotal role for this population of readers; however, less is known about how word reading relates to other important semantic processes (e.g., vocabulary, sentence processing) known to…

This study examined cross-language transfer of word reading accuracy and word reading fluency in Spanish-English and Chinese-English bilinguals. Participants included 51 Spanish-English and 64 Chinese-English bilinguals. Both groups of children completed parallel measures of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, word reading accuracy,…

One day, over four centuries ago, Daniele Barbaro, a Venetian nobleman, tried an interesting experiment (Upton & Upton, 1980). He decided to use a convex lens from a farsighted man's spectacles to expand the viewing power of his camera obscura. To his delight, "the lens projected images much superior to those previously supplied by the…

This article presents a critical review of the literature surrounding the potential impact of undiagnosed and untreated vision impairment on reading development in the early years of primary school. Despite pre-school screening programmes, it is still possible for children to enter school with undiagnosed, uncorrected vision impairments. This can…

Examines tasks provided for students in most literature textbooks used in the United States, noting that these tasks typically control students' responses to literature. Relates these tasks to current theory and research on the reading process. Describes activities from literature texts used in Canada that facilitate literary response. (MM)

This paper considers some of the benefits of reading and writing e-literature, including its influences on prints texts, challenges to the imagination, and attention to metafictive devices and processes. The less cohesive, more fragmented quality of e-literature creates a subjunctive space for creation where writers can consider interesting…

The development of the Alberta Diagnostic Reading Program (ADRP) was based on a current psycholinguistic theory that describes reading as a process in which the reader uses background information to communicate with the author. To ensure its usefulness and effectiveness, the developers of the ADRP sought the advice and direct involvement of many…

Traditional ways of teaching French literary narrative have greatly relied on the use of metalanguage. Modern teaching practice, in rejecting this technique, leads to questions about what to substitute for it. An experiment was carried out in which over 20 groups of from 20 to 35 intermediate-level students in French-medium schools were instructed…

The reading skill development of anglophone kindergarten children in French immersion programs in Canada is the subject of the two papers included in this document. The first paper describes a study that examined the English reading ability of both kindergarten and first grade children in immersion programs and compared the results with those of…