Examines the traditional criteria for evaluating first and second language reading texts. Proposes that, if reading is interaction between a text and a reader, variables related to the reader's side of the process, global textual properties, content characteristics, and rhetorical and discourse features should be considered before linguistic…

Describes the basic components of Iser's theory, then suggests ways to get students to interact with texts. (FL)

Offers a metacognitive strategy for helping students answer inferential comprehension questions and a research-based rationale for its use. (FL)

Reviews the oral tradition and suggests that by drawing on the long tradition of stories in all cultures, fiction can be crucial in the extension of understanding of imaginative experience, of values and attitudes, and of real learning for all children. (HOD)

Examines think-aloud protocols of experts from three disciplines generated as they revised mismatched text/illustration combinations from biology textbooks; 14 biology students also gave protocols as they read and interpreted the combinations. Indicates that the experts worked in similar ways, but many were not able to predict the…

Compared reading practices of historians reading highly familiar texts with those reading familial but unfamiliar texts. Found that:(1) historians read intertextually, using general document-reading knowledge, including identification and interpretation schemata; (2) general knowledge interacts with topic-specific expertise; (3) identification and…

Describes using the jigsaw reading strategy (in an 11th-grade English classroom) with a literary classic: Henry David Thoreau's "Walden." (SR)

Distinguishes between teacher questioning that characterizes students' textual understanding and questioning that actively engages students in the meaning-making process. Contends that there must be a proper balance between the types of questioning in classrooms that support students in their efforts to learn from text as they actively interact…

Focuses on adolescent students' perceptions of their own actions, thoughts, and motives related to classroom talk about texts. Finds that students are aware of the conditions they believe to be conducive to good discussions, knowledgeable about the different tasks and topics that influence their participation in discussions, and cognizant of how…

Reports on an interview with Gary Paulsen, the 1997 winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring an author's lifetime contribution in writing books for teens. Highlights include the importance of librarians and reading encouragement, the author's experiences and writing, and readers' responses to books. (Author/LRW)

Provides classroom teachers with seven guidelines for responding to readers in ways that support the use of strategies for making sense of text. Discusses traditional responses to readers and "round-robin" reading versus reading conferences. Concludes that by responding appropriately to readers, teachers provide powerful demonstrations of the…

Explores the multidimensional nature of learning from text through a discussion of the critical variables of students' knowledge, interest, and use of strategies. Examines the developmental nature of learning from text as students journey through school from acclimation to competence, and finally to expertise in a subject area. Suggests…

Describes a journal writing activity designed to engage students in the exchange between text and reader. Argues that informal writing in a journal is a means of letting students find out that, if they engage themselves with a text, they will find it interesting. (RS)

Maintains that, when students interpret a poem differently from their teachers, an opportunity opens for a common ground of understanding that can enrich the relationship between text and reader. (RS)

The article examines the potential impact of computer-based text technologies, called hypermedia, on disabled readers. Discussed are hypertext, the hypercard, and implications of metacognitive research (such as author versus user control over text manipulations), instructional implications, and instructional text engineering. (DB)