This article explores the digital reading preferences and strategies used by preservice teachers when reading an e-textbook in a literacy methods course. The use of e-textbooks is becoming more prevalent due to an increase in access to mobile devices, acceptance of e-books in general, and the high cost of print textbooks. To ensure comprehension,…

Technology has long been employed to improve teaching and learning, although not always so efficiently and cleverly as one might wish. Advances in the teaching paradigm have sometimes reinforced outmoded, obsolete, and simply incorrect practices and prevailing understanding of the organization of knowledge. Today, technology presents education in…

For over a century, history teachers throughout the United States have selected textbooks as the primary instructional material for their classrooms, while textbook authors and publishers have continuously produced a unified nation-state narrative that presents United States history as a series of objective historical facts for student…

In this paper, we report on a comparison of the treatment of addition and subtraction of fractions in primary mathematics textbooks used in Cyprus, Ireland, and Taiwan. To this end, we use a framework specifically developed to investigate the learning opportunities afforded by the textbooks, particularly with respect to the…

In the 19th century the textbook dominated the curriculum and methods of instruction. The most important textbook was the textbook of reading known as the reader. In the early 1800s science was not established as a separate primary grade subject. The science students encountered in these reading textbooks may have been their only formal science…

Investigates the use of humor in basic communication textbooks. Concludes that humor is used frequently to teach rather than simply to attract attention; it is of the harmless, nonsense variety and appears not to be antisocial as far as sex-role stereotypes are concerned. (JMF)

Examines the ways in which composition essay anthologies shape and reflect the beliefs and teaching approaches of composition teachers. Focuses on how anthologies treat a widely reproduced essay, E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake." (TB)

Using ordering tasks in which 51 grade-12 students arranged fragmented text passages, it was observed that students produced a high number of texts with top-level structures that employed minimal organizational components and had recourse to local coherence criteria to organize the text. (PR)

This exploration of the origins of educational communications and technology as a field focuses on the 1920s when the visual education movement first appeared. An explanation of the study precedes separate reviews of 13 primary sources--i.e., visual education textbooks--and draws on them to provide evidence for an analysis of the ideas and forces…

The results of this study point to the need for a reevaluation of the content and methodology of the traditional methods course in elementary teacher training. (Author)

Contrasts the traditional method of teaching college reading, which is based on behaviorist theory, with the modern model, which is based on psycholinguistic theory. Categorizes 20 current, popular reading textbooks as traditional, modern, or mixed. Argues that psycholinguistic theory will dominate in the next century, not only as a theory for…

Examines middle and high school students' views of instructional practices teachers use to facilitate reading of difficult textbooks. Finds differences between students' perceptions of the desirability of textbook adaptations (high) and their perceptions of the frequency of teachers' use of adaptations (low). Discusses the disparity between…

Indicates that popular methods texts used in college classes are no better than basal manuals in providing guidance in how to teach comprehension. (FL)

It would be a mistake to underestimate the challenge of any attempt to elevate the current status of textbook research. The negativity surrounding textbooks in terms of use and status as both literary objects and vehicles for pedagogy is profound. There is a very deep-seated "anti-textbook ethos" witnessed throughout the education business. This…

This study examined achievement differences between algebra students taught with the non-traditional textbook developed by Saxon and those taught with a "traditional" textbook by Dolciani. Student absences, rate of turning in homework, and ability level were considered, as well as teachers' comments. One Algebra I section in each of…