This research memorandum highlights the collaborative efforts of the literacy panel for the ETS Return on Investment (ROI) Study, Phase 1, comprising Jean-François Rouet, M. Anne Britt, and Tobias Richter, in developing their research memorandum, "Literacy Skills at and around Level 2 of the PIAAC Cycle 2 Proficiency Scale." This…

Originally designed for first language classrooms, literature circles have been adapted for second language (L2) contexts to enhance reading proficiency and discourse skills. While traditional practice in L2 settings involves assigning roles to students for engaging with texts, critiques have highlighted potential constraints on participation and…

This paper explores the importance of students responding to children's books for diversity and disabilities. The main claim of the paper is that we need to explore new ways of engaging children to respond to diversity beyond the traditional model of Reader's Response Theory. Even though Reader's Response Theory is a very important framework to…

Augmented reality (AR) technology can enrich preschoolers' picture book reading experiences. This study examined differences in reading quality and comprehension between children using AR and traditional paper picture books. Ninety 5- to 6-year-old children from City S, with no prior AR exposure, were randomly assigned to an AR group or a paper…

Teachers' literacy identities inform how they teach reading. Only about half, however, view themselves as enthusiastic readers, and up to 40% have negative attitudes toward reading. The repercussions are great: not only do teachers who are unenthusiastic about reading produce uninspired students, but they also use fewer research-based reading…

Cultivating inclusive residential communities is an important responsibility of professional and graduate residence life staff. Meaningful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training is crucial for fostering inclusive and safe residential communities, yet there is limited empirical data on this topic. This study explores one residence life…

Successful text comprehension requires readers to engage in a number of coherence-building processes. This study examined how analyzing the cohesion of students 'constructed responses can be used to evaluate these coherence-building processes and the extent to which they vary across readers' individual differences and across types of texts. We…

This paper reports on a 3-year study utilizing a novel approach to providing students in an introductory engineering course with feedback on drafts of course writing projects. In the Volunteer Expert Reader (VER) approach, students are matched with university alumni or employees who have the background to give feedback from the perspective of the…

This article draws on research with elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) in a children's literature course focused on understanding and appreciating picturebooks as esthetic objects through multimodal analysis and multimodal response. PSTs received explicit instruction on picturebook and visual design elements then designed digital/multimodal…

Universidad Tecnológica de Santiago (UTESA) is a university considered as one of the highest ranking universities in the Dominican Republic, it is one of the few to be recognized by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology as an autonomous university for its constant research and updating. This university offers to college students…

Misconceptions, stereotypes, and deficit views of Mexican immigrants are pervasive in the current U.S. media. Such views are inconsistent with culturally responsive pedagogy, and teachers who hold them will be impeded in their abilities to teach Mexican immigrant children effectively (Nathenson-Mejia & Escamilla, 2003). Research supports the…

Tensions and contradictions in my personal practice and in the extant research prompted this study of preservice teachers' responses to trans-themed young adult literature. I adopted a self-study methodology to identify and address the shortcomings in my practice of including trans-themed literature in a Literature for Adolescents course. Through…

This article examines classroom practices that draw upon students' understandings of race and equity as they engage in critical literature inquiry to explore issues of power in our society. Our research team, comprising a fifth-grade classroom teacher, a doctoral candidate, and a university professor, analyzed students' written and digital…

The purpose of this study was to investigate what teachers in a Western Canadian province were doing when engaging their students with literature. Forty two teachers from Kindergarten through to Grade 12 were interviewed, which allowed us to get a broad perspective on the types of reader response activities that are being taught in the classroom…

This article describes a project conducted with Year 12 English students. It was based on the model of "Teaching as Inquiry" (Ministry of Education, 2007) and aimed to develop students' self-efficacy in relation to their literature-response essay writing. Self-efficacy was measured using Bandura's (2006) self-efficacy scale and an…