A summary of research relating to second and third grade reading

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston UniversityPURPOSE: To discover the reliability of the adjustment scale using two raters. This study was conducted to help determine whether the instrument used in this study gives a reliable measure of classroom adjustment. PROCEDURE: The teacher checklist of classroom adjustment devised at Boston University School of Education was the instrument used. The instrument was built to follow the activities of a normal classroom day [TRUNCATED

Text spacing considerations for children’s on-screen reading

This investigation seeks to uncover the insights of three integral and inter-related participants in the creation and use of on-screen reading material for children’s learning. This is an effort to discover what factors are perceived to influence children’s comprehension. Through a design-analyse-refine methodology this researcher discusses a series of typographical considerations relating to space which bear further empirical investigation in the literature. This methodology involved discussion of ideas garnered from four experts. The results of each iteration of the experiment influenced further refinement of the ideas until suitable conclusions were able to be developed by the writer. Testing materials in this experiment adjusted variables for visual separation, including margins, separation of image and type, as well as line spacing, letter spacing and word spacing

The effects of pictures on the order of accessing online war stories

Research on how people read news stories has shown that readers chose to read and access news stories associated with pictures that contained an element of attraction. Researchers have found that the emotional elements within the picture could also play a role. It is unclear how neutral human interest pictures influence readers to access news stories. Is the access process influenced by less emotive pictures or more human interest elements? These issues were explored in an experiment in which 24 students participated. The experiment compared similar news that was accompanied with a human interest picture, information graphic and without information graphic. The focus of the news stories was on war news which almost always contained human interest elements that could be neutral or emotion-laden. The experiment suggested that human interest pictures of war stories could be equally effective in attracting readers to read and remember the news stories

Adolescent Literacy and Textbooks: An Annotated Bibliography

A companion report to Carnegie's Time to Act, provides an annotated bibliography of research on textbook design and reading comprehension for fourth through twelfth grade, arranged by topic. Calls for a dialogue between publishers and researchers

EFL readers' text comprehension: assessing the effectiveness of illustrations

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente, Florianópolis, 2010Este estudo empírico investigou o efeito facilitador de ilustrações na compreensão de texto para leitores de inglês como língua estrangeira. O estudo foi motivado pela necessidade de maior entendimento do tema, tendo em vista ser um assunto atualmente abordado por vários pesquisadores do campo de Linguística Aplicada. A metodologia adotada envolveu a coleta de dados de 13 participantes do curso de inglês extracurricular da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, com nível básico de proficiência, correspondente ao terceiro semestre do curso, o qual é composto por seis semestres. Os participantes foram divididos em três grupos pequenos e cada grupo leu o mesmo texto com uma abordagem diferente: O Pre-Reading Group realizou uma atividade pré-leitura com figuras antes de ler o texto; O With-Picture Group leu o texto com as imagens; e o No-Picture Group leu o texto sem imagens. As atividades realizadas pelos participantes consistiram em uma leitura de texto, uma arefa de recordação de conteúdo imediatamente após a leitura, uma tarefa de múltipla escolha, um questionário retrospectivo; uma segunda tarefa de recordação do conteúdo foi realizada uma semana após o primeiro encontro. Os dados foram analisados tanto quantitativamente quanto qualitativamente, examinando-se os resultados das tarefas de recordação do conteúdo lido, os dados da tarefa de múltipla escolha e o questionário retrospectivo. Os achados deste estudo indicam um efeito facilitador das ilustrações na compreensão de leitura quando levado em consideração o uso das imagens como suporte na atividade de pré-leitura. O grupo WPG mostrou melhores resultados no delayed recall quando comparado com o immediate recall. Os resultados gerais sugerem que o efeito facilitador do uso de ilustrações pode auxiliar os leitores de segunda língua (inglês) na seleção de informação relevante, o que pode ajudar na compreensão de texto para alunos/leitores com nível básico de proficiência

Affordances and limitations of electronic storybooks for young children's emergent literacy

AbstractStories presented on phones, tablets and e-readers now offer an alternative to print books. The fundamental challenge has become to specify when and for whom the manner in which children retain information from stories has been changed by electronic storybooks, for better and for worse. We review the effects of digitized presentations of narratives that include oral text as well as multimedia information sources (e.g., animations and other visual and sound effects, background music, hotspots, games, dictionaries) on children's emergent literacy. Research on preschool and kindergarten children has revealed both positive and negative effects of electronic stories conditional upon whether materials are consistent with the way that the human information processing system works. Adding certain information to electronic storybooks can facilitate multimedia learning, especially in children at-risk for language or reading difficulty. Animated pictures, sometimes enriched with music and sound, that match the simultaneously presented story text, can help integrate nonverbal information and language and thus promote storage of those in memory. On the other hand, stories enhanced with hypermedia interactive features like games and “hotspots” may lead to poor performance on tests of vocabulary and story comprehension. Using those features necessitates task switching, and like multitasking in general, seems to cause cognitive overload. However, in accordance with differential susceptibility theory, well-designed technology-enhanced books may be particularly suited to improve learning conditions for vulnerable children and turn putative risk groups into successful learners. This new line of research may have far-reaching consequences for the use of technology-enhanced materials in education

The Effectiveness of a Visual-Verbal Literacy Technique on Certain Targeted Comprehension Skills of Seventh Grade Students

Forty seventh grade students from a rural community participated in a picture comprehension treatment program. The program was designed to determine if a visual-verbal literacy technique was effective in significantly increasing the inferential comprehension scores of the participants. Materials included a written comprehension test in two forms, one serving as a pretest, the other a posttest. Also included was a packet of 40 simple line drawings and a test measuring picture comprehension. For ten consecutive days, those students showing a deficiency on the pretest were exposed to a visual-verbal literacy technique. This technique consisted of a discussion of the simple line drawings with regard to the four targeted skills: (1) main idea, (2) cause and effect, (3) comparing and contrasting, and (4) predicting outcomes. Students were then tested on these four skills with a written posttest and a test measuring picture comprehension. Results indicated that students were able to significantly increase their inferential comprehension scores following the treatment program. These students were also able to master these targeted skills on a test of picture comprehension, indicating that they were able to derive meaning from pictures without text accompaniment

Exploring Storybook Illustrations in Learning Word Meanings

This study explores storybook illustrations in learning word meanings among English learners in a university intensive language program. The impact of children’s literature on the comprehension and vocabulary development of second language children is well-documented. However, the use of the literature with adults still needs to be researched. Therefore, a mixed-method study was designed (1) to investigate whether readers who read an authentic illustrated story differed from those who read the same story without illustrations; and (2) to learn more about the readers’ process of learning words from storybook illustrations. Results suggest that illustrations play an important role in both comprehending the text and learning individual words, however issues related to the accessibility of the text and readers’ ability to use context should also be taken into consideration. The findings support prior research that the benefits of learning from context take time to become robust. The study suggests that illustrated storybooks provide a rich context for adults to infer word meanings and recommends children’s literature as an alternative source of reading in programs serving adult English learners

Effects of Illustrations on Retention and Visual Attention Using Authentic Textbooks

Problem The purpose of this exploratory study was to validate a model of multimedia learning, incorporating learner-specific characteristics such as intelligence, memory, and measures of visual attention. Method The sample consisted of 62 Andrews University students (26 males, 36 females, and mean age 21.7). Data were gathered by means of standardized testing (RPM, WAIS- III) and eye-tracking. MLR was used to determine significant visual attention predictors for retention and SEM was used to test a hypothesized model of multimedia learning. Results Multiple Linear Regression was significant (p.05; GFI = .923; CFI = .986; RMSEA = .043; PGFI = .451) proving the hypothesized model’s excellent fit to the data. Conclusions This exploratory study indicates that there are different learning strategies in a college population that are not related to characteristics such as intelligence or working memory. These strategies are learned or acquired and have thus clear implications for practice

Practice, principles, and theory in the design of instructional text

This study is concerned with an analysis of the research arising from three quite different perspectives on instructional text - the `physical characteristics' research (legibility, layout, and readability), the `improvement of text' research (visual illustrations, adjunct aids, and typographical cueing), and the `learning theories' research (representation of knowledge, human memory, and quality of learning). From this analysis there is synthesised principles for the design of instructional text against which heuristic practice in text design is evaluated and from which a nascent theory of instructional text design is evolved. The principles derived from the various research perspectives provide a basis for the manipulation of text design elements in order to ensure that (a) existing knowledge in the reader can be activated, and (b) new knowledge can be assimilated in a manner facilitative of comprehension by (i) presentation in a structured and organised way, and (ii) appropriately highlighted through verbal and typographic cueing supported, as required, by verbal illustration and organisation. The emerging theory of instructional text design suggests: a topical analysis to determine the heirarchic relationship of ideas within the topic and the desired learning outcomes or objectives; a consideration of the linguistic aspects of the text; a consideration of the role of visual illustrations; and a consideration of the physical parameters of the text. These activities are concerned, respectively, with the design areas of structure and organisation, readability, visual illustration, and legibility, and are summed up in the acronym SORVIL