Reading literacy is a multidimensional construct in terms of text and reading processes. Much research has examined the divisibility of the processes underlying reading, but they have treated the rest of the construct as unitary. This study extends the examination of dimensionality to a neglected area in literacy studies. It tests reading models…

The purpose of this study is to describe educationally relevant differences in literacy use among three subject-matter disciplines--history, chemistry, and mathematics. These analyses were drawn from an investigation of the teaching of disciplinary literacy in high schools. The purpose of the overall project was to improve the literacy-teaching…

The ability to read is well-recognized as essential to being successful in school history. To be able to read history textbooks effectively, students can be made aware of some features typical of history discourse. Knowledge of how nominal groups are functional in history discourse can help students and teachers engage with the meanings presented…

Children ages 2-18 spend between two and four hours per day watching TV, a calculation that is even higher if DVDs, videos and the Internet are included. Although the amount of television watched by today's children has raised concerns about their literacy development, captions could hold a key to turning television into an educational asset.…

This article follows the development of three literacy programs that were designed by researchers at Michigan State University to support struggling readers and writers. The literacy interventions focus on strategy instruction in both writing and reading, and they culminate in the development of an integrated reading-writing program to support the…

The purpose of this theoretical essay is to explore the limits of traditional conceptualizations of reader and text and to propose a more general theory based on the concept of a literacy agent. The proposed theoretical perspective subsumes concepts from traditional theory and aims to account for literacy online. The agent-based literacy theory…

Hands-on explorations can be extended through interactions with informational texts, enhancing both science learning and literacy development. In this article, the author describes a primary-grade science activity that begins with students examining pine cones and sharing their experiences and observations with peers. The students then generate…

Explores the expectations of the National Literacy Framework and highlights some problem areas in the context of the National Curriculum for English. Notes one such area relates to the assessment criteria which were selected from the framework to address children's understanding of organizational features of texts in reading and writing. Concludes…

Elaborating on Emile Durkheim's claim that major debates about pedagogy are always an indicator of underlying social change, this book charts the enormous impact computers are having on how people read and write, how reading and writing are taught, and how literacy is defined. The larger concern of the book is how technology generally affects not…

Revealing something of the vast changes in intellectual life that are likely to follow the rapid expansion in the power and availability of computers, the essays in this book represent a serious effort to redefine the parameters of literacy debates of the 1980s. Discussions at the end of each of the five sections of the book represent an attempt…

Describes a young child, age two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half, as he interacts with three types of storybook media (CD-ROM, Language Experience Approach, and traditional) at home with his mother. Reveals seven distinct episodes of interaction, which were compared across storybook media experiences. Finds that the proportion of engagement in…

Intended to offer an introduction to some major themes in literacy education, this book aims to inform discussions while assisting teachers to reflect on their work as literacy teachers. The book covers work with students in the full range of schooling and in a number of different subject areas. The book's topics include the nature and use of…