Reading

Working with textbooks: Reconceptualising student and teacher roles in the classroom

by Keith Barrs

IN INNOVATION IN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING. CO-AUTHORED WITH LUKE ROWLAND. A paper about role-based textbook book in reading classes

Student reactions to different methods of in-class textbook use have received little attention in the literature on... more Student reactions to different methods of in-class textbook use have received little attention in the literature on English language teaching. This article explores the responses of 57 Japanese university students to the replacement of teacher-led textbook lessons with small group, role-based textbook work in regular English reading classes. Insights into the challenges and opportunities presented by small group, role-based work were gained through a qualitative analysis of the students’ written lesson reflections. The findings reveal that although the students tended to view the new approach favourably, there were underlying issues related to responsibility, pressure and collaboration that emerged from the students’ lesson reflections. Conclusions point to the context-dependent and individually realised nature of classroom enterprise. In this article, the authors also contend that insights into classroom activity are best gained through research methodologies that allow for inquiry into teaching/learning environments without disturbing pedagogical endeavour.

Sensitivity to sonority for print processing in normal readers and dyslexic children

by Nathalie Bedoin

We investigated sonority effects on letters cohesion and possible implicit segmentation for
printed CVCCVs in... more We investigated sonority effects on letters cohesion and possible implicit segmentation for
printed CVCCVs in French. Adult readers, dyslexic children and control children had to recall
the color of target letters in briefly presented two-coloured pseudowords. The distribution of
colours was either compatible or not with the hypothesized underlying CVC.CV structure.
Sonority either did or did not obey the phonotactic rule for optimum syllable sequence (higher
sonority for the end of the first syllable than for the beginning of the subsequent one). Data
showed that CVC.CV repartition was respected by adult readers (and, to a lesser extend,
by dyslexic children) if this phonotactic rule was obeyed. Only dyslexic children associated
the two consonants as an onset cluster (CV.CCV) if this rule was not obeyed. Therefore,
dyslexic children exhibit sensitivity to sonority for implicit syllabification in reading, but
the phonotactic rule about syllabic sequence is too strictly applied and CVC syllables with
obstruent coda are refused.
Keywords : reading, phonetics, dyslexia, sonority, syllable

The complexity of phonetic features organisation in reading

by Nathalie Bedoin

The reference is:
Bedoin, N., & Krifi, S. (2009). The complexity of phonetic features organisation in reading. In F. Pellegrino, E. Marsico, I. Chitoran, & C. Coupé (Eds.), Approaches to phonological complexity, Phonology & Phonetics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

"Medium, Immediacy, Intermediality": a call for contributions to a proposed special issue of POSTMODERN CULTURE

by Matt Tierney

Co-edited with Mathias Nilges.

We invite submissions for a proposed special issue of Postmodern Culture entitled “Medium, Immediacy, Intermediality.”... more We invite submissions for a proposed special issue of Postmodern Culture entitled “Medium, Immediacy, Intermediality.” The issue aims to gather ways of seeing the term “medium” beyond current disciplinary frames. Rather than take the routes of literary or film studies, art history or communication theory—and rather than see media as discrete, pre-constituted categories of aesthetics or mechanics—we seek to put the category of medium into question, and in doing so, to facilitate approaches to the various mutually dependent media whose boundaries and frames might now seem less conclusive.

Age of Acquisition's Effect on Memory for Semantically Associated Word Pairs

by Margaret Gullick

The effects of Age-of-Acquisition on ambiguity resolution: Evidence from eye movements

by Margaret Gullick

Tangible words are recognized faster: The grounding of meaning in sensory and perceptual systems.

by Margaret Gullick

Effects of a phonological awareness program on English reading and spelling among Hong Kong Chinese ESL children

by Susanna Siu-sze Yeung

Accepted by Reading and Writing

This study investigated the effects of a 12-week language-enriched phonological awareness instruction on 76 Hong Kong... more This study investigated the effects of a 12-week language-enriched phonological awareness instruction on 76 Hong Kong young children who were learning English as a second language.
The children were assigned randomly to receive the instruction on phonological awareness skills embedded in vocabulary learning activities or comparison instruction which consisted of
vocabulary learning and writing tasks but no direct instruction in phonological awareness skills. They were tested on receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness at the syllable,
rhyme and phoneme levels, reading, and spelling in English before and after the program implementation. The results indicated that children who received the phonological awareness
instruction performed significantly better than the comparison group on English word reading, spelling, phonological awareness at all levels and expressive vocabulary on the posttest when age,
general intelligence and the pretest scores were controlled statistically. The findings suggest that phonological awareness instruction embedded in vocabulary learning activities might be
beneficial to kindergarteners learning English as a second language.

Múltiples lectores implícitos

by José Angel García Landa

Publicado en Cuadernos de Investigación Filológica, XXXV-XXXVI (2009-2010), p. 63-75.

This paper reflects on the concept of the implied reader in narrative fiction, with special reference to Walker Gibson... more This paper reflects on the concept of the implied reader in narrative fiction, with special reference to Walker Gibson and Wayne Booth's original conception, and to Brian Richardson's recent work on multiple implied readers. The fuzziness of the concept of the implied reader, and its tendency to multiply, is shown to be related to the diverse interactional and interpretive uses of the texts.


Este artículo reflexiona sobre el concepto de lector implícito en la ficción narrativa, con referencia especial al concepto originario de Walker Gibson y Wayne Booth, y al reciente trabajo de Brian Richardson sobre la multiplicidad de lectores implícitos. Se muestra cómo los límites difusos del concepto de lector implícito, y la tendencia del mismo a multiplicarse, son fenómenos relacionados con los diferentes usos interaccionales y hermenéuticos de los textos.

Working memory span and phonological awareness tasks as predictors of early reading ability

by Lucy Henry

Leather, C. & Henry, L.A. (1994). Working memory span and phonological awareness tasks as predictors of early reading ability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 58, 88-111.

Active Reading and the Teaching of Writing

by Marinella Lizza

http://www.zeitschrift-schreiben.eu/ 2007

The article focuses on the connection between reading and writing. The use of reading questions being answered in... more The article focuses on the connection between reading and writing. The use of reading questions being answered in writing can be a powerful tool to support reading understanding, and to make students more aware of the construction of expectations and the selection of reading purposes they do in their reading activity. The author shows some ways to acquire active reading strategies, such as the use of reading questions that respond to different fields of analysis, or the use of both open and close comprehension questions.

Early effects of word surprisal on pupil size during reading

by Stefan Frank

Frank, S.L. & Thompson, R.L. (2012). Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

This study investigated the relation between word surprisal and pupil dilation during reading. Participants' eye... more This study investigated the relation between word surprisal and pupil dilation during reading. Participants' eye movements and pupil size were recorded while they read single sentences. Surprisal values for each word in the sentence stimuli were estimated by both a recurrent neural network and a phrase-structure grammar. Higher surprisal corresponded to longer word-reading time, and this effect was stronger when surprisal values were estimated by the neural network. In addition, there was an early, positive effect of surprisal on pupil size, from about 250 ms before word fixation until 100 ms after fixation. This early effect, which was only significant for the network-based surprisal estimates, is suggestive of a preparation-based account of surprisal.

Learning styles, personality types, and reading comprehension performance

by Faiz Sathi Abdullah

Co-published with Nabi Sadeghi. Zalina Kasim and Tan Bee Hoon (2012).

This study aims at reviewing the relationship between learning styles, personality and reading comprehension... more This study aims at reviewing the relationship between learning styles, personality and reading comprehension performance. Over the last two decades, ample studies have been done to examine the relationship between learning styles, learner’s personality and performance in academic settings. The reviewed studies substantiate that there is a relationship between personality types and/or traits of the learners, the way they establish their learning styles and their academic success in school and university both at an undergraduate and postgraduate level. Therefore, learners depending on the type of their personality resort to different learning styles or preferences which-in turn- affect their learning performance. However, there are no studies – either theoretical or empirical – examining exclusively the role of personality and learning styles on reading comprehension performance. Moreover, the findings with regard to the bulk of research on the relationship between personality and success in reading comprehension- are not that congruent. Accordingly, due to the scarcity of the research on showing the
relationship between personality, learning styles and chievement in reading comprehension, and also incongruity of the research results on personality and reading comprehension performance - the current study proposes that further research on the above areas would seem imperative.

Læsningens og betydningsdannelsens forvandling i senhistorisk perspektiv

by John Thobo-Carlsen

Published in Dominique Bouchet (ed.): Forandringer af betydning. Ørbæk: Forlaget Afveje 2009

PIRLS 2006, A negyedik osztályosok szövegértése

by Péter Balkányi

“Books Will Speak Plain When Counsellors Blanch”: Reading as Consolation in Seneca

by Liz Gloyn

Given at the 2012 Classical Association Conference, Exeter.

Seneca’s deployment of reading as a consolatory strategy reveals several previously unexplored facts about his... more Seneca’s deployment of reading as a consolatory strategy reveals several previously unexplored facts about his approach to consolation and to reading. Although he ostensibly recommends a different kind of reading in each consolatio, he suggests that literature can offer an intellectual comfort to a suffering mind, regardless of what type of work is being read. He also views reading as an active process which spurs the reader to independent action and reflection, not a passive process in which the reader merely absorbs comfort from the text they read.

In his consolation to Polybius, Claudius’ imperial freedman, Seneca recommends that he returns to his books and offers various potential literary projects that he might undertake, such as a biography of Claudius and of the brother that Polybius mourns. Claudius’ biography is recommended as particularly suitable because Polybius’ mind will be diverted from its own internal struggles by handling such serious and austere subject matter (8.4). In his consolation to his mother Helvia, Seneca suggests philosophical study as her most appropriate recourse. It will provide long-lasting protection from the whims of Fortune, as opposed to the mere distractions of examining her estate accounts (17.2-5) – in this case, literary pursuits trump maths for consolatory purposes.

Whether Seneca believes his addressee should be reading literature or philosophy, he clearly thinks that the process of reading plays an important and underappreciated part in the consolatory process. Properly directed reading transforms a person’s mental state, helping them move beyond grief and into emotional equilibrium. Seneca sees reading not just as a simple distraction from grief, but as a dynamic way of providing comfort and restoring intellectual balance to his addressees.

Friendship and Shared Reading Experiences in Augustine

by Naoki Kamimura

Patristica, supplementary volume 3 (2011) 69-83

[Introduction]
1. The invulnerability of friendship and its spiritual prescription
2. Reading experiences in... more [Introduction]
1. The invulnerability of friendship and its spiritual prescription
2. Reading experiences in combination with friendship
3. Concluding Remarks

What Were These Characters Thinking?! Using Sufi Tales to Cultivate Critical Thinking in Children (co-author)

by Jurgis (George) Brakas

The purpose of this essay is to help elementary school teachers use picture storybooks to develop their students’... more The purpose of this essay is to help elementary school teachers use picture storybooks to develop their students’ critical thinking skills, arguably the most important skill students can learn. To achieve that purpose, we selected four delightful Sufi tales written for Western children, tales in which the thinking of the characters has gone or does go awry. Each story raises its own perplexing question: Why would an old woman insist an eagle is a pigeon? How could five men—in the same situation and confronted with the same object—arrive at five widely different and incorrect identifications of that object? How does a chicken frighten a group of townspeople to the point where they want to escape from the earth? Why would villagers be terrified by a fruit? These are all questions that involve critical thinking issues. The framework we use for analyzing the stories is a modified version of Paul and Elder’s Elements of Thought and the work of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge. Our approach is to summarize the stories; to systematically apply our framework to each story, thereby providing teachers with a tool for helping children comprehend them; to offer, on that basis, a brief, narrative account of the significance of each story, indicating in what way the thinking of the characters has gone awry and what principle of thinking would have prevented it; and, finally, to add a few open-ended questions to illustrate how the principles of thinking in each story can be applied to the personal lives of the children. Our approach integrates teaching philosophy and reading comprehension in a way that makes it fit naturally into the elementary school curriculum, literacy activities being an integral part of it. What the children learn can serve as a foundation for them as they begin to develop a system of thought for decision-making and problem-solving that will serve them well throughout their lives.

CUDDLE AND READ

by Nigel Mellor

Visit website
https://sites.google.com/site/nigelsbitsandbobs/Home/cuddle-and-read

This approach tackles reading problems by addressing difficulties in the parent-child interaction. The material was origianlly for psychologists, but could be easily adapted for teachers. Colleagues are invited to adapt the materials and run their own small scale research projects on this approach.

Organizing Instruction for Struggling Readers in Tutorial Settings

by Amy Hutchison

Mokhtari, K., Hutchison, A., & Edwards, P. (2010). Organizing Instruction for Struggling Readers in Tutorial Settings. The Reading Teacher.