Multimodal text types hold promise for promoting classroom discourse. Because of the ways that language combines with various other modes such as sound and movement, video-based texts can offer access points for meaning-making and engagement that print-only text cannot. Through the lens of New Literacies, this mixed methods study examines one…

Investigates the phenomenon of topic shift (sentences initiating a new topic are given additional processing time by skilled readers). Finds adults showed a proportionately greater effect than fifth graders when more difficult expository texts were used but not with easy narratives. Finds that paragraph marking did not influence the processing of…

Uses a cognitive processing perspective to revise fifth grade social studies texts, to describe those revisions, and to demonstrate their effects empirically. Finds that students reading the revised text recalled more material and answered more questions correctly than did those reading the original text. Concludes that a text-processing approach…