Louise Rosenblatt's well-known concept of stance distinguishes between efferent reading (reading to take something away from the text) and aesthetic reading (reading for the experience of dwelling in the text). This article proposes a refinement to this binary, adding the concept of afferent reading. Afference, in biology, means a bringing-to, and…

Personalizing text is known to support learning from text. The present study extends evidence of the personalization effect by investigating whether elementary school students' reading comprehension benefits from reading narratives personalized by using the reader's name for the narrative's protagonist. Additionally, this study examined the…

This article argues that Hegel's book "The Phenomenology of Spirit" can be read as a "Bildungsroman" or a theory of reception. Hegel (as he appears in this book) sets forth to educate his readers to a historical understanding. This is the article's main argument which will be split up in three parts. First, it seems that Hegel…

The current set of experiments was designed to explore the processing of spatial information during reading, specifically the "spatial-shift" effect and the "spatial-gradient" effect. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that when participants were presented with text alone (i.e., without prior map memorization, virtual…

Reading engagement is an essential component of children's reading achievement. This three-chapter dissertation considers a new approach to conceptualizing reading engagement through the lens of children's immersion, or absorption, in a text. Chapter 1 examines the theoretical underpinnings of story world absorption, sometimes known as…

Reading is an integral part of scholarly practice, though we do not often discuss how our approaches to reading differ, and how these approaches may ultimately make interpretive impact on our research. This essay considers approaches to reading in light of the concepts of proximity and orientation. Though formal "close reading" is a…

In a rapidly changing information landscape, science communicators need to find new ways to engage audiences, make their information memorable and increase attitudes towards scientists. Evidence suggests that stories could be an effective tool for these goals, but few studies tested experimentally whether they are advantageous to non-stories in…

Background: Although comprehending illustrated texts is essential, adult readers in this era may not have acquired reading comprehension strategies. Eye-movement modelling example (EMME) is promising for helping less-skilled learners master these strategies; however, its benefits for adults remain unknown. Another understudied factor in the EMME…

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…

Selecting texts that can support young readers is essential work for teachers because the 'right' text provides readers with opportunities to demonstrate their skills, strategies and comprehension. Text complexity guides offer teachers one way to select those texts, but despite these pedagogical supports, many readers continue to struggle with…

What affects moment-to-moment motivation to read? Existing reading motivation questionnaires are trait-based and not well suited to capturing the dynamic, situational influences of text or social context. Drawing on the decision science literature, we have created a paradigm to measure situational enjoyment during reading. Using this paradigm, we…

Background: Digital texts are progressively becoming the medium of learning for students, but research has indicated that students tend to process information more superficially while reading on screen. It is therefore relevant to examine what strategies can support digital text comprehension. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the…

Selecting and remembering the necessary information from rapidly increasing information requires summarization skills. Research on improving students' summarization skills has focused on deletion, generalization, and reconstruction strategies. However, direct teaching of these strategies does not yield successful results. For this reason,…

Learning can be made more efficient when learners generate the to-be-learned text contents instead of passively receiving them. A multi-level meta-analysis was conducted to provide an overall estimate of the text generation effect's magnitude and to identify theoretically and practically relevant moderators. Overall, generation interventions…

As instructors of Jewish Studies struggle to find ways for their students to be more engaged in their learning, it is worthwhile for educators to consider whether art-based assignments are effective at reaching this goal. This article examines what students gain when their study of a biblical chapter is paired with the generation of an art product…