Information graphics, or "infographics," are widely used to convey complex science and its importance to society. To be educated consumers and citizens, students need to understand and be critical of information presented in graphical form. Researchers, accordingly, have called for fostering the "representational competence" of…

This study investigated the effects of a peer-delivered system of least prompts intervention and adapted grade-level science read-alouds on correct listening comprehension responses for participants with moderate intellectual disability. The intervention package included prompts in which selected text was read again. Participants directed the…

The low rates of child literacy in South Africa are cause for considerable concern. Research from the developed world shows that parental sharing of picture books with infants and young children is beneficial for child language and cognitive development, as well as literacy skills. We conducted a pilot study to examine whether such benefits might…

Children delight in "giving voice" to their drawings. If provided the opportunity, children can express powerful and imaginative ideas and make meaning through visual and verbal modes. When adults spend time talking with children about their artwork, they see glimpses of imagination at work, as well as effective uses of language. This article will…

Prosody plays a variety of roles in infants' communicative development, aiding in attention modulation, speech segmentation, and syntax acquisition. This study investigates the extent to which parents also spontaneously modulate prosodic aspects of infant directed speech in ways that distinguish semantic aspects of language. Fourteen mothers of…

This study was designed to address three hypotheses: (1) The reading speed of both readers of French braille and readers of French print will be faster in the silent condition; however, this gain in speed will be larger for print readers; (2) Individuals who acquired braille before age 10 will display faster reading speeds at lower error rates…

This paper describes the visuals second grade students included in their own information book compositions during a science unit on weather during which multimodal science trade books on the topic of weather were read aloud. First, the multimodal nature of the information books used in the unit are described. Second, the teacher's talk about…

In the last ten years, historical fiction picturebooks have won numerous children's literature awards and have assumed a prominent role in the literacy landscape of elementary and middle school classrooms. Whether read in read-alouds, study groups, as a focus of genre study, or as a supplement to the social studies curriculum, historical fiction…

Fluency is known as the bridge between phonics and comprehension. Teachers of reading provide high-quality instruction in phonics and decoding strategies, usually in a small-group format, but may be unsure how to insert fluency instruction into the small-group lesson. This article presents key concepts in fluency instruction and a description of…

On a recent Saturday morning, 20 inmate mothers filed into the prison chapel at Alabama's Tutwiler Prison to participate in a unique program--The Storybook Project, a program of Aid to Inmate Mothers (AIM). AIM is a nonprofit organization that helps mothers in prison stay in contact with their children during their incarceration. At the front of…

This study examined the effects of a reading intervention on narrative production, narrative comprehension, and reading motivation interest in children with hearing loss. Seven school children between the ages of 9 and 11 were paired with younger "reading buddies" (without hearing loss). The children with hearing loss read storybooks to…

Ian is a 17-year-old student attending a therapeutic school in an urban district. He was referred less than a year ago due to behavioral and academic issues at the comprehensive high school. One instance in his art class, Ian overreacted when his teacher misinterpreted his humor, leading to a major school crisis. Learning to recognize the early…

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text-reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity): how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word-reading fluency, reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word-reading fluency and reading comprehension. The study examined (a) developmentally changing relations…

Although several different reading fluency intervention approaches appear promising for adolescents who are struggling readers, few studies have directly compared various approaches. The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to determine the relative effects of word-oriented, fluency-oriented, comprehension-oriented, and multi-component…

"Shared book reading" (also known as "interactive shared book reading") encompasses practices that adults can use when reading with children, which are intended to enhance young children's language and literacy skills. During "shared book reading," an adult reads a book to an individual child or a group of children…