Visual attention and active engagement during shared book reading are important for facilitating emergent literacy learning during the preschool years. Children on the autism spectrum often show difficulties in language and literacy development, yet research investigating potential indicators of shared book reading engagement, including visual…

Adapted shared storybook reading has been demonstrated to be effective at increasing both engagement and comprehension during shared storybook reading for elementary-aged students with exceptional needs. Research on these methods has primarily been conducted with students in self-contained elementary classrooms and has lacked evidence of…

Various studies have discussed learners' attitudes and achievement in CALL and MALL (Kiernan & Aizawa, 2004; Lu, 2008; Huang & Lin, 2011, but there has been little research into a combination of these with paper-based materials to date in terms of their attitudes and the factors leading to decisions about which to use. Research has…

Comics have an important role in non-formal learning environments. However, how comics may be effective teaching/learning activitities in formal education is an ongoing debate in literature. The purpose of this study is to create and evaluate a series of instructional comics about heat related concepts to be used as teaching/learning activities in…

Despite evidence that youths' literacy practices and identities are important contributors to literacy learning, studies of secondary literacy instruction often focus on understanding classroom storylines from the perspectives of teachers and schools. The purpose of this case study was to examine how one youth, Leo, shaped the storyline of his…

Researchers studying parent-child reminiscing in the preschool years have often focused on parents' and children's elaborative talk (i.e., provision of unique details). The current study proposes a novel conceptualization of parent-child reminiscing narratives by examining 4 levels of abstraction (i.e., a continuum of literal to inferential…

Everyday activities are replete with contextual cues for infants to exploit in the service of learning words. Nelson's (1985) script theory guided the hypothesis that infants participate in a set of predictable activities over the course of a day that provide them with opportunities to hear unique language functions and forms. Mothers and their…

To promote students' awareness about diversity and to create and sustain an ethic of inclusion, it is vital to offer them critical analytical skills necessary to understand systems of power and the tools to create change. Although many faculty already integrate diverse perspectives, materials, and pedagogical approaches into their courses, many of…

Comics have an important role in non-formal learning environments. However, how comics may be effective teaching/learning activitities in formal education is an ongoing debate in literature. The purpose of this study is to create and evaluate a series of instructional comics about heat related concepts to be used as teaching/learning activities in…

Children's imitation of adults plays a prominent role in human cognitive development. However, few studies have investigated how children represent the complex structure of observed actions which underlies their imitation. We integrate theories of action segmentation, memory, and imitation to investigate whether children's event representation is…

Storybook reading interactions are an important strategy to support and enhance the development of communication and literacy skills. In order to reap the benefits of these interactions, students must be active participants. Unfortunately, for students with special needs, more specifically those with complex communication needs, they encounter…

Preschoolers' (n = 32) attention to print and pictures was documented during an electronic storybook reading session. Children (M = 51.06 months; SD = 7.34 months) looked at a 12-page book that contained three types of pages, each of which was presented four times over the course of the book: (1) silent presentation of print, (2) print that was…

Shared book reading is defined as the interactive process of engaging children with text and illustrations. Through shared book reading, children learn to enjoy the reading process and appreciate different genres of literature, such as story books, alphabet books, and rhyming books. They acquire foundational skills that lead to reading success,…

Apps are no longer technical innovation but rather a cultural phenomenon that touches upon potentially every aspect of daily life in Western culture (Stichnothe, 2014, p.198). In this article, Colleen O'Connell, the director for digital books at HarperCollins, is interviewed about the background of book apps and their potential for teaching and…

Recent experiments have shown that people iconically modulate their prosody corresponding with the meaning of their utterance (e.g., Shintel et al., 2006). This article reports findings from a story reading task that expands the investigation of iconic prosody to abstract meanings in addition to concrete ones. Participants read stories that…