The study aims to explore the effect of illustrations on young readers' comprehension of science passages, including how they decode specific symbols such as arrows when viewing illustrations. We investigated reading behaviours and interpretation of arrow symbols of 64 sixth-graders in three illustrated science passages using an eye tracker and by…

The purpose of this study was to analyze visual attention during students' learning of Toulmin's argument pattern (TAP) and the effects of epistemic beliefs in science on the understanding of argument components. A total of 43 undergraduates were recruited through the Internet. Online questionnaires targeting beliefs about knowledge in science…

The research genre has specific communicative purposes which require students to understand the tone, generic and disciplinary conventions. The present study explored the potential of thematic progression (TP) to contribute to research argument readability. TP concerns how clauses encode information and how that information is carried forward.…

This study adopted eye movement miscue analysis research method to examine and illustrate the cognitive and psychological processes of meaning construction and error detection in reading Chinese. Eighteen Taiwanese grade five elementary students read a short Chinese text with six embedded errors. Results show that like earlier studies, only about…

This study examined the influence of formulaic language on second language (L2) listeners' lower-level processing, in terms of their ability to accurately identify the words in texts. On the one hand, there were reasons for expecting the presence of the formulas to advantage the learners, because the learners would process these formulaic words…

This study employed eye-tracking technology to probe the online reading behavior of 52 advanced L2 English learners. These participants read an e-book containing six types of multimedia supports for either vocabulary acquisition or comprehension. The six supports consisted of three micro-level supports that provided information about specific…

We adopted an experimental design to investigate the effects of various media presentation modes on the reading attention and comprehension of Taiwanese elementary school students. The participants comprised 138 students from 4 classes of third grade elementary school students from New Taipei City, Taiwan. The participants attended 5 short stories…

The ability to read English efficiently and effectively is important for medical students because they have to read a lot of medical texts published in English. This is challenging especially for non-native speakers. This study measures Taiwanese medical students' self-perceived use of metacognitive strategies while reading printed texts and…

There are no salient word spaces in Mandarin Chinese. Thus, it is unclear whether word spacing information differentially affects the reading speed of children with and without reading difficulties (RD). In the present study, native Chinese-speaking children of differential reading abilities were tested with Chinese text in un-spaced versus spaced…

With the rapid growth of computer technology, some printed texts are designed as hypertexts to help EFL (English as a foreign language) learners search for and process multiple resources in a timely manner for autonomous learning. The purpose of this study was to design a hypertext system and examine if a 14-week teacher-guided print-based and…

The study examined the effects of cultural familiarity with a text on Chinese students' reading comprehension performance and reading time. In the first phase of the study, participants were required to read a culturally familiar text, write down the time they spent reading the passage, and immediately complete a cloze test without referring back…

Task-based language learning using the benefits of online computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can be effective for rapid vocabulary expansion, especially when target vocabulary has been pre-arranged into bilingual categories under simpler, common Semantic Field Keywords. Results and satisfaction levels for both Chinese English majors and…

The work described in this paper explores the feasibility of using of a wireless handheld system (WHS) that supports the individual and co-operative reading activities of students and helps teachers implement reading strategy instruction in Chinese language classes. The experimental findings demonstrate that the WHS benefits students applying…

This study reports on our design of a computer system which supports the understanding of how students construct their mental representation of references and how the construction failures impede their reading comprehension. Three modules, "User interface", "Recording", and "Feedback" were implemented. The…

The major purpose of this study is to assist college students in constructing mental representation of referential resolution in a computer system. Ninety students were asked to draw mental maps indicating the relationships between references, take reading comprehension tests, and fill out open-ended questionnaire. Results showed that the…