Examines the nature of engagement with informational text by exploring four gifted students' responses to children's information books and informational storybooks. Indicates that these children expressed a variety of reasons for reading non-fiction and held interesting perceptions and strong opinions about informational content. Finds that…

A preliminary study set the groundwork for exploring the challenges secondary school teachers and students face in reading texts drawn from their own culture and from cultures quite different from their own. Interviews were conducted with 89 secondary school students, and also with university teachers and secondary school teachers of African…

Explores how child readers in Australia and Germany responded to Randolph Stow's "Midnite." Reports on responses from taped interviews conducted in each country, examining both child and adult responses to the ironic humor of the work. (MG)

Discusses reading with pre-teens Francine Pascal's "Sweet Valley Twins: Best Friends," one of a series of pre-romance novels featuring identical twin sisters. Interviews six girls using the Symbolic Representation Interview (SRI) about the good girl/bad girl dichotomy in novels and other media. Provides comments by Tom Romano and Diana Mitchell.…

An interview method for assessing reading processes was pilot tested to examine reader-text interaction among native-Spanish-speaking fifth graders. Subjects were active participants in the reading situation but were lacking in aspects related to the text's cultural content. The reading interview method is highly recommended for use in…