The major research question was: How do pictures and texts function in developing literary elements in picturebooks for younger readers and picturebooks for older readers? We examined 30 picturebooks for younger readers and 30 picturebooks for older readers to determine how pictures and text work to develop plot, character, setting, and mood.…

This study tracks changes in three primary characteristics of Early New High German (ENHG) publications from 1499 to 1710: the complexity of the syntactic system of the language, the pictorial saturation of the publications, and the relationship between verbal text and illustrations on the ENHG printed page. Drawing on findings from literary…

In response to ongoing concerns about financial ethics, this study analyzes the speech of company executives in quarterly earnings conference calls to understand strategic usage of ethics-related language. Against the backdrop of the recent global financial crisis, the Aristotelian concept of ethos provides a framework to investigate linguistic…

The purpose of this "teaching tips" article is to describe practical classroom instruction that helps elementary students write expository responses to narrative texts. It focuses on the importance of scaffolded, interactive discussions comprised of a combination of teacher think alouds and similar student responses before, during, and…

This dissertation is a variationist account of two non-standard relative clause (RC) structures in Spanish: resumptive pronouns (RPs) and prepositional-phrase (PP) chopping. Previous typological studies considered RP explanations based on difficulty of processing (Hawkins, 1994), while Spanish-specific quantitative studies proposed a number of…

This study examined first graders' accuracy and reading rate in highly decodable and qualitatively leveled texts. The study inspected accuracy and rate by different levels of practice (practiced vs. unpracticed) and at different times of the year (October, January, and May). Seventy-four first graders read both leveled and decodable texts with and…

One of the basic findings on situation models and language comprehension is that reading times are affected by the changing event structure in a text. However, many studies have traditionally used multiple, relatively short texts, in which there is little event consistency across the texts. It is unclear to what extent such changes will be…

The present theoretical paper presents a case for the use of narrative (i.e., fictional written text) in science education as a way of making science meaningful, relevant, and accessible to the public. Grounded in literature pointing to the value of narrative in supporting learning and the need to explore new modes of communicating science, this…

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS/ELA) focus on building student capacity to read complex texts. The Standards provide an explicit text complexity staircase that maps text levels to grade levels. Furthermore, the Standards articulate a rationale to accelerate text levels across grades to ensure students are able to…

This resource is part of a series produced by the Center for Standards and Assessment Implementation (CSAI) to assist teachers and those who support teachers to plan teaching and learning from College and Career Ready Standards (CCRS) for all students, including students with disabilities, English learners, academically at-risk students, students…

Previous studies have shown that students with low knowledge understand and learn better from more cohesive texts, whereas high-knowledge students have been shown to learn better from texts of lower cohesion. This study examines whether high-knowledge readers in computer science benefit from a text of low cohesion. Undergraduate students (n = 65)…

Teacher Jennifer Tyler shares her experience of creating a text set for a social studies unit on colonial America.

As people attempt to make sense of the world, they develop personal knowledge structures. These structures often contain misconceptions--inaccurate or incomplete information--that are highly resistant to change because existing knowledge networks must be restructured to accommodate counterintuitive information in a process known as conceptual…

Social networking can currently be described as a mainstream youth activity, with almost half of 8-17-year-old children, who have access to the Internet, claiming to participate. As an activity it is of particular interest to literacy educators because it is enacted through the production and consumption of text. However, a growing body of…

Preliminary efficacy data are reported for a research-based reading intervention designed for struggling readers in high school. PHAST PACES teaches (a) word identification strategies, (b) knowledge of text structures, and (c) reading comprehension strategies. In a quasi-experimental design, 268 intervention and 83 waiting list control students…