Unlike the vocabulary used in language arts and social studies, knowledge of expository text (text written to inform) and the language of science are required for reading and writing in science (Carrier 2005). This vocabulary, along with expository text structures, often is not taught in middle and high school classrooms, thus hindering students,…

The present paper aims at investigating the structure and the content of the written explanations produced by primary school pupils' aged 11-12) during teaching sequences focused on the didactic elaboration of obstacles regarding temperature and heat. At first, teaching sequences targeted at the pupils' destabilising, restructuring, and…

According to research in educational psychology, advance organizers lead to better learning and recall of information. In this research, the authors explored advance organizers from a business perspective, where larger documents are read under time pressure. Graphic and verbal advance organizers were manipulated into six versions of an advisory…

The purpose of this paper, drawing data from a large research base, was to investigate how and why Taiwanese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) male and female university students responded to feminist texts differently. These participants were taking an elective course titled Gender and Reading while this research was conducted. Weekly reading…

Comprehensive, authoritative, and designed for practical utility, this handbook presents evidence-based approaches for helping struggling readers and those at risk for literacy difficulties or delays. Leading experts explain how current research on all aspects of literacy translates into innovative classroom practices. Chapters include clear…

Discusses problems with marking free text, text that is either natural language or semigrammatical but unstructured, that prevent well-formed XML from marking text for readily available meaning. Proposes a solution to mark meaning in free text that is consistent with the intended simplicity of XML versus SGML. (Author/LRW)

As an instructional tool, graphic organizers (GOs) have been highly recommended and used in contemporary classrooms. Over the past decade, a number of concerns have been raised about claims for the effectiveness of GOs. These concerns involve the inconsistent research results on student improvements, the limitation in generalizability from…

The commentary argues for an understanding of how texts are put together that accounts for multimodality and draws on children's ways of being and doing in the home, their "habitus". It focuses on identities as socially situated. It argues that it is important to trace the process of sedimenting identities during text production. This offers a way…

Research shows that students who have a good understanding of narrative text structure have fewer problems comprehending stories. Research also suggests that many students require explicit instruction in how to comprehend this text type. While some children are able to figure out the more elaborate structure of narrative text on their own (i.e.,…

A reduced relative-main clause ambiguity occurs in sentences that begin with reduced relative clauses, as in "The hangman executed by the government was convicted of treason." This ambiguity has often been the focus of research designed to investigate the processes by which syntactic structures are built during sentence comprehension.…

Studies leads and other top paragraphs in stories from the Associated Press (AP), United Press International (UPI), Scripps Howard News Service, and three major newspapers. Finds average lead sentence lengths range from 39 to 25 words. Suggests that journalists may be writing for themselves more than for readers. (RS)

Background: The Material Appropriate Processing (MAP) framework suggests that the influence of a text adjunct on the learning and transfer of textual information will be moderated by the overlap between type of processing induced by the adjunct and by the organisation of the text. The two types of processing are item specific processing and…

School success in the 21st century requires proficiency with expository discourse--the use and understanding of informative language in spoken and written modalities. This occurs, for example, when high school students read their textbooks and listen to their teachers' lectures, and later are asked to demonstrate their knowledge of this complex…

The present study relates to a research line in didactics of science that focuses on the function that sign systems or semiotic modes have in communicative interactions in science classrooms. The study was conducted by 20 secondary and university science teachers who belong to the same research group LIEC ("Language and Science…

The aim of the study was to determine whether the animation of a linear process, requiring explanatory text, can assist students to form a better understanding of the text. Tertiary students (N = 61) participated in a pre-test, post-test experimental study during which they were exposed to 4 treatment variables: text (T), video and text (VT),…