There's no better way to understand the work of a scientist than to have it explained in the scientist's own words. Scientific journals, personal accounts of research projects, and documentaries can give students an authentic view of the scientific process. It's an important step towards getting students excited about science and the work of…

This study documented how young children talked about story in a supportive environment. Participants were 22 kindergartners and their teacher, who engaged in extended talk about story after listening to a picture book or chapter from a novel. Data collected included transcripts of videotaped conversations during large- and small-group discussions…

This paper describes a study designed to find out whether children's reading would be affected by line spacing that is wider or narrower than the commonly used default values. The realistic, high quality test material was set using a range of four different line spacing values, and twenty-four children in Years 1 and 2 (between five and seven…

An important research paradigm applied to the study of adolescent resistance to reading--listening to student voice--has yielded rich information regarding adolescent literacy practices, adolescent agency, and adolescent identity as components of resistance to reading. Instructional perspectives of teachers and researchers also serve to shed light…

A study examined the effects of a reader response approach to literature in which literature is viewed as a medium for exploration and the effects of such an approach on a group of young women. Subjects of the study were four female middle school students, with the adult female researcher as participant observer. Books chosen for…

An Israeli study determined what happens when persons with low-literacy levels read news accounts that presuppose general knowledge that the writer expects them to have, but that they may not necessarily possess. The study sample consisted of about 600 students, mostly women, in 30 literacy centers throughout the country. In each class, adult…

No matter what pains translators take to produce a target-language text "identical" to the source-language text, criticism and/or translation of an original literary work cannot be the same in different language communities. That translation may change potentialities in the textual experience is particularly obvious in literature with a…

Hong Kong education is based on an imperialist rhetoric which serves to "domesticate" rather than "liberate" the school population. The importance of memorization is clearly evident in education in Hong Kong. The community's educational system reflects a classical Chinese emphasis on familiarity with a set body of texts and on…

A study examined the relative comprehension difficulty and the influence of reader and text characteristics on reading comprehension for texts presented in traditional print or on the microcomputer screen. Two urban samples of mixed ethnicity were used, 95 low reading level high school students (grades 9 through 12) and 112 high ability eighth…

A Jungian psychoanalytic approach, using the unconscious animus/anima archetype, can explain the appeal of the romance novel to women readers through an understanding of how the romance formula fulfills the psychological needs of contemporary women as the struggle for identity in a patriarchal society. The heroine of the romance is attracted to…

Kentucky is one of twenty-four states that rely upon a state adoption process for selecting school textbooks, a procedure that occurs every six years. Publishers' bids are solicited and evaluated by the State Textbook Commission, and the Textbook Selection Criteria Committee for Reading makes recommendations that will be of help to people…

In order to investigate the text structure/reading comprehension relationship, this paper reviews recent research on text representation theories. Text structure investigation--research on semantic memory as it is concerned with meaning from the word level through the inference level--follows the premise that sentences are understood in the…

Noting that the ways children encounter and use print in the classroom can be examined as surface and organizing content of curriculum, this article provides descriptions of innovative uses of print in the kindergarten and elementary school classroom. Curriculum "surface content" includes activities, use of classroom space, display, and…

By providing definitions of key concepts, outlines of major models, and practical suggestions for classroom implementation, this pamphlet gives teachers access to current research on the interactive model of reading. The topics covered include: Vygotsky's learning theory, metacomprehension, prior knowledge, chapter mapping, cooperative learning,…

The reading recall protocols of 24 tenth grade and 24 twelfth grade students were used in a study that investigated the relationship of average reading ability and high school grade placement to recall of expository text with adversative and attributive structures. Two test passages were written in an adversative structure with contrasting…