Many students from elementary school through college encounter difficulty understanding their science textbooks, regardless of whether they have language disorders. This article discusses some of the particular difficulties associated with science text comprehension and possible remedies for facilitating and enhancing comprehension of challenging…

The paper examines two basic modes of text building, first proposed by Sinclair 1994. It argues that these textbuilding means are not just different, but are, rather, operational opposites. It suggests that this difference means that ESL learners who first acquire one mode of text building are, by this means, also equipped with the wherewithal to…

Five experiments investigated the interpretation of quantified noun phrases in relation to discourse structure. They demonstrated, using questionnaire and on-line reading techniques, that readers in English prefer to give a quantified noun phrase in (VP-external) subject position a presuppositional interpretation, in which the noun phrase limits…

This article describes an autobiographical writing assignment completed by students and faculty that is shared in an off-site retreat. It highlights an approach to learning about human diversity that blends affective and behavioral approaches with more traditional cognitive methods. It supports the interrogation of student and instructor…

Anticipating a possible future method of newspaper design (including multimedia content) and delivery, a study examined the interface among people, modality (paper, computer, multimedia), and three types of news story (news, sports, entertainment). The "primacy of print" theory (which predicts that information will be recalled better…

A study examined the relationship between two variable sets: (1) epistemological beliefs (Quick Learning, Simple-Certain Knowledge, and Innate Ability) and performance goals; and (2) conceptual understanding and application reasoning in conceptual change learning. In addition, effects of different kinds of prior knowledge on conceptual change…

A study investigated the writing motivation of 145 third- and fifth-grade students. Because self-perceived competence and task value interact in important ways to influence an individual's motivation, these two constructs were used as the basis for measuring children's motivation to write. Students responded to the Motivation to Write Scale (MWS),…

A study examined 52 stories for grades 1-6, randomly chosen from 10 American and Canadian literature-based reading series containing well-known selections by well-known authors. The study compared the reading series selection to the original story cited in the series acknowledgments, seeking patterns of difference in wording, paragraph structure,…

Noting that children must be provided with the opportunity to read various types of text as early as possible if they are to develop into strategic and self-directed readers, this paper presents research evidence to show that every text type makes unique demands on readers. The first section of the paper discusses reading in the school context,…

A study tested whether an intervention involving collaboration and the integration of reading and writing would build sixth-grade students' schemata for comparison/contrast and cause/effect text. Subjects were 76 students in 7 sixth-grade classes in 2 urban middle schools. Four of the classes were randomly chosen as the treatment group. For the…

The concept of Arithmetic Story Grammar is introduced. Arithmetic Story Grammar maintains that any equation containing a single operand tells, in and of itself, a complete story with a setting, plot, theme, and resolution. Multiple-operand equations differ from their single-operand siblings only in the number of actions undertaken and the number…

A study investigated the roles of particular cultural exemplars and more abstract cultural schemata in the acquisition of genre knowledge. Subjects, 16 kindergarten children, 20 first-grade children, and 18 second-grade children from one intact classroom at each grade level, were interviewed about their knowledge of various textual and structural…

Despite accompanying drawbacks, the Internet information system known as Gopher presents a rich variety of potential benefits to writing pedagogies and to educational administrators. Writing teachers need to overcome tendencies to think of exploration of the Internet information resources as something to be uncritically adopted and as something to…

Included in this paper is an outline for the book "Multiculturalism in the Mainstream: Teacher Researchers Build Multiethnic Literacy Communities in Urban Multicultural English and Social Studies Classrooms." The paper presents full descriptions of the chapters; a draft of the first chapter; a draft of a completed teachers' chapter; and a sample…

A study examined the first grade materials in five new basal programs submitted for the 1993 Texas state adoption. (The programs were those of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; Houghton Mifflin; Scott Foresman; Macmillan/McGraw-Hill; and Silver Burdett Ginn). These series are compared with program materials currently in use in the state. The analysis…