Considers how lift-the-flap books attract very little critical attention. Attempts to redress this imbalance by suggesting that lift-the-flap books provide useful lessons in reading both literature and pictures for the young reader, that a grammar of lift-the-flap books can be postulated to facilitate their description and discussion, and that the…

Investigates two types of texts (a reading scheme book and a children's literature text) to see how the reader is constructed by the text, and what kind of reading support is offered. Finds that the literary text offers more reading support than the supposedly carefully constructed reading scheme book, which constructs a passive reader to whom…

This document describes how the main principles of Perspective Text Analysis are implemented in the PC-system PERTEX, concentrating on the main steps of the analysis. The analysis starts with normal text and ends in a topological representation of the mentality that the text presents. The text material is processed in the following main steps: (1)…

Writers construct meaning when they compose texts, and readers construct meaning when they understand and interpret texts. Building meaning through reading entails organizing, selecting, and connecting. Readers use previously acquired knowledge to operate on textual clues, organizing mental representations that include material they select from…

Two main types of schemata exist for reading: content schema, representing existing knowledge of objects and events; and textual schema, including knowledge of discourse structure and conventions. There are at least six major schema functions important to reading comprehension: (1) schemata provide slots for assimilating additional knowledge; (2)…

Reading is best understood as a dialectic process where the influence of reader and text are constantly merging to create a jointly produced and evolving understanding. What occurs as the reader and text come together during reading is similar in form to a dialogue, a model for the reader-text relationship that has not been explored in the reader…

Reports on the Multilingual Resources for Children Project at Reading University, United Kingdom, which examines the problems of relating and controlling dual language texts so that the reader perceives the two texts as equally important. States that the project encompassed five languages: Chinese, Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu, and Panjabi--the most…

Reviews research on the effects of world knowledge and text structure variables on reading comprehension. Concludes that text structure variables exert influence only when the subject matter is moderately unfamiliar and are redundant in reading familiar or very difficult material. Suggests knowledge and structure variables should be manipulated…

Suggests that each type of literature presented to young readers serves two important functions: to develop a schema for that literary genre; and to encourage the application of thinking skills in a variety of literary engagements. Presents four related resources from the ERIC database. (MG)

Focuses on diagrams giving overviews of complex technical information as facilitators for adult subjects using computers to learn about the business activities of a fictitious family. Finds that features of the author's control over the reader's encounter with the diagram influences whether readers will interrupt their reading to study the…

Uses an error detection paradigm to examine the ability of college students of different reading proficiency levels to evaluate their understanding of texts. Finds that good readers were more likely than poor readers to detect inconsistent sentences. Finds that students rated passage understanding high regardless of whether they detected…

Extends an earlier study by using different materials, ratings for familiarity, and more stringent experimental controls. Finds concreteness effects in two experiments using undergraduate students. Suggests that familiarity and concreteness contribute separately to recall. Supports a dual coding theory. Discusses implications for text design. (RS)

Finds two general types of intertextual links: (1) links among ideas, events, and people; and (2) social, cultural, political, and historical connections. Notes that the eight high-school students adopted various discourse stances, reflected in the ways they positioned themselves in relation to the passages, and that they used textual resources in…

Many students enter high school unskilled in the art of reading to learn from science textbooks. Even students who can read full-length novels often find science books difficult to read because students have relatively little practice with the various types of expository text structures used by such textbooks (Armbruster, 1991). Expository text…

Two experiments with 188 college students investigated the facilitative effect of typographical signals such as underlining, headings, or other devices to help readers identify specific points. Results do not support a general facilitative effect of typographical signals but suggest that use of signals depends on the reader's strategic processing.…