Examines in-depth one kindergarten child's comprehension when reading "considerate" (including multimedia effects integral to the story) and "inconsiderate" (including incidental multimedia effects) CD-ROM talking books in a classroom computer center. Finds considerate CD-ROM talking books support the child's understanding and retelling of the…

Describes the importance of understanding that engaged readers can make commitments or promises to understand other readers' perspectives of a text and their interests in using it. Describes how the author's demonstration lesson to a group of Kazakstan educators was transformed into a site for exploring the educators' practices for using a…

Considers how reading Jane Tompkins'"Sensational Designs" helps foster a new appreciation of the ways in which students contribute to the creation of a literary work. Discusses how students responded to their semester-long study of various "neglected" 19th-century women writers. (SG)

Points to the importance for Jewish education of the relationship between the Hebrew language and Jewish identity. Argues that de-emphasis of the Hebrew language leads to a culture and religion that do not reflect the texts, culture, and traditions of Judaism. Prescribes increased emphasis on Hebrew in training Jewish teachers. (DSK)

Analyzes the conversations and writings of 2 ethnically diverse populations of fifth-grade children (ages 10 and 11) in response to the powerful and difficult themes contained in two award-winning children's books. Discusses the child's voice; the teacher's role as cultural mediator; responses at the literal level; reading between the lines;…

Presents a model of instruction to illustrate that helping students understand a text need not be at odds with engaging them in student-oriented transactions. Analyzes effects of giving lower-track students direct instruction in how experienced readers evaluate reliability of literary characters by examining the writing and discussions that the…

Describes strategies to facilitate college students learning from scientific journal articles. Builds upon a variant of SQ3R as a basic strategy and utilizes a cognitive strategy instruction (CSI) model for sequencing instruction. (NH)

Describes how the authors introduced and organized small-group literature discussions in a first-grade bilingual class. Discusses the four most frequent types of student responses in discussions: living through the experience; looking closely at text and illustrations; exploring social issues; and making connections (to other books, life…

Readers of most literary works usually find themselves in the role of witness, where their very act of reading initiates a process in which students or apprentices and teachers or educators take part in a "narrative" of imparting knowledge. An intertextual reading of literary works on the one hand and of current educational texts (e.g., programs,…

It is exciting to have a beautiful new science textbook--if students can read it! Unfortunately, many students can not read their science textbooks unassisted. This may be because students are reading below grade level, or because the material, like that of many science texts, has a readability one or more grade levels above the grade in which it…

The use of trade books in science instruction, particularly in the elementary and middle school grades, invites scrutiny into the ways in which trade books represent science and its practitioners to learners. Forty-four trade books were examined for their explicit and implicit representations of science. The majority of the sample was comprised of…

This research compared high-load and low-load versions of a text by manipulating text presentation, text organization, and example context on measures of fact and concept learning. The low-load text presentation variable enhanced fact and concept learning and post-reading ease of comprehension ratings. The low-load text organization variable led…

In this investigation, we examine the availability of text elements over the course of reading a text. We describe the Landscape model (van den Broek, Young, Tzeng, & Linderholm, 1999) that captures, in one theoretical framework, multiple cognitive processes during reading and the resulting fluctuating activations of text elements. To demonstrate…

Two dimensions of students' beliefs about meaning construction in reading processes, transmission and transaction beliefs, were studied. According to transmission beliefs, the reader's task is to understand the author's intended meaning, while transaction beliefs assign to the reader the role of active meaning constructor. Students' beliefs were…

A cosmopolitan education must help us identify with those who are unlike us. In Martha Nussbaum's words, students must learn "enough to recognize common aims, aspirations, and values, and enough about these common ends to see how variously they are instantiated in the many cultures and their histories." It is commonly thought that reading serious…