“Coerced Loss and Ambivalent Preservation”: Racial Melancholia in American Born Chinese

Recent applications of Freud's theory examine the social value of the lost love object as a way of understanding the suffering of non‐majority groups. Rather than pathologizing the individual suffering the loss, the lens of racial melancholia pathologizes the discourse that constitutes racially marked others as alien to the majority. Through a close reading of image and text, Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides applies David Eng and Shinhee Han's theory of racial melancholia to Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese. Sarigianides argues that texts such as American Born Chinese provide grounds for a public language for examining the suffering that ensues from the failure of assimilation as a desired outcome for immigrants in the United States.     

The “Batman Effect”: Improving Perseverance in Young Children

This study investigated the benefits of self‐distancing (i.e., taking an outsider's view of one's own situation) on young children's perseverance. Four‐ and 6‐year‐old children (N = 180) were asked to complete a repetitive task for 10 min while having the option to take breaks by playing an extremely attractive video game. Six‐year‐olds persevered longer than 4‐year‐olds. Nonetheless, across both ages, children who impersonated an exemplar other—in this case a character, such as Batman—spent the most time working, followed by children who took a third‐person perspective on the self, or finally, a first‐person perspective. Alternative explanations, implications, and future research directions are discussed.     

Designating reader perspective to increase comprehension and interest

In three experiments we examined whether reader perspective on a long expository text could be manipulated such that increased text interest and enhancement of two comprehension outcomes would result. In Experiment 1 we verified the viability of a new text for experimental purposes. We then assigned readers a perspective before reading in Experiment 2 and after reading in Experiment 3. One primary research question addressed whether interest in a long expository text could be manipulated by assigning readers a perspective. We considered this to be an examination of purpose-driven interest ( Schraw & Dennison, 1994). As hypothesized, participants rated text segments as more interesting when the segments corresponded to their assigned perspective. In support of our second hypothesis, that recall would increase as a function of reader perspective, low to medium effects were found for both total number and depth of ideas recalled. We discuss implications of this work for understanding of the role of relevance in increasing recall. Implications for practice and future research are also discussed.     

Influence of a catalan peer tutoring programme on reading comprehension and self‐concept as a reader

This study relates to the results obtained in the development of reading comprehension (RC) and self‐concept as a reader in students who participated in Llegim en parella (Reading in pairs), a Catalan peer tutoring programme. The research combines a quasi‐experimental design with the use of comparison groups and pre‐tests/post‐tests for both variables; a qualitative approach is adopted by analysing the interactions in order to detect influencing factors. Statistically significant results were obtained for all students in terms of RC but only for student tutors in relation to reading self‐concept. The factors involved in the improvements identified in RC are: reading strategies, scaffolding in inferential and deep comprehension questions. Regarding self‐concept, the tutor's own role, his involvement with their tutees' progress, reading aloud and the metacognitive reflection processes, are all factors that enable us to explain the improvement in the tutor's reading self‐perception. The positive influence of peer tutoring on the development of reading competence through this programme is clearly evident.     

On being a slow reader: psychoanalytic reading problems in Ishiguro's Never let me go

A novel can teach us about our act of reading. Ishiguro's Never let me go is analysed as an occasion for thinking about reading as an allegory of psychic development. Drawing on the work of Melanie Klein and Hannah Arendt, my psychoanalytic reading explores the discord between the signifier and the signified, seeing this conflict as belonging to language, development and social thought. I analyse the slow events of reading to illustrate two irresolvable conflicts animated and transferred onto the scene of reading: encountering what is illegible yet impressive in psychical reality and putting these impressions into language to speak and write about what is ambiguous and unknown in external reality. I suggest this novel of education may be read as a commentary on the internal world of object relations, where Ishiguro's characters stand in relation to our affective representations.     

CHALLENGING SPECULATION ABOUT “DEWEY'S RACIALIZED VISIONS”

In this essay Michael Eldridge maintains that Frank Margonis has in a recent article ill‐advisedly speculated about John Dewey's pedagogy, suggesting that his “racialized visions” of students and classroom communities involve a “false universalism” that is problematic for our multicultural society. Based on this understanding, Margonis concludes that we need to seek an alternative to Dewey's educational philosophy. Eldridge strongly disagrees with this conclusion, arguing that assessing Dewey's philosophy and pedagogy is not a matter for speculation but should instead be based on the extensive documentation and research that is readily available. Eldridge focuses in this essay on documenting Margonis's speculations regarding Dewey's theory and pedagogy, and then offering an alternative reading of Dewey's writings as well as scholarship about Dewey's life and work. Ultimately, Eldridge argues that a wholesale abandonment of Dewey's educational approach is unnecessary and would be misguided.     

A Social-Studies Unit that Developed Pupils’ Powers of Problem Solving

This article reports the author's experiences using graphic novels with pre-service teachers in a young adult literature course. Drawing on critical response papers two students composed after reading Pride of Baghdad, a graphic novel by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon, the author argues that when readers possess the background knowledge needed to approximate the role of the implied reader—that is, the imaginary audience for whom authors envision themselves writing—they are capable of engaging with graphic novels in ways that readers who lack experience with the form, or who question its literary merit, are not.     

The Construction of Meaning from Text: possible effects of different reading strategies

An examination is reported of the effect of differences in reading strategies on the construction of meaning from novel length text. Following a brief review of psychological theory relevant to the question of how particular strategies could constrain meaning construction, specific differences are hypothesised in relation to Orwell's classic tale, Animal Farm. The results of an experimental examination using post‐graduate Diploma in Education students as subjects, and multidimensional scaling as the analytic technique, support the contention that reading strategies are important in the construction of differential meanings. The educational implications of the results are discussed in relation to the change in school practice from teacher‐directed reading to students reading more books but on their own or in small groups, without direct teacher intervention.     

“I Know You Don't Know I Know…” Children Use Second‐Order False‐Belief Reasoning for Peer Coordination

Numerous studies have investigated children's abilities to attribute mental states, but few have examined their ability to recruit these abilities in social interactions. Here, 6‐year‐olds (N = 104) were tested on whether they can use first‐ and second‐order false‐belief understanding to coordinate with peers. Children adjusted their decisions in a coordination game in response to either their partner's erroneous belief or their partner's erroneous belief about their own belief—a result that contrasts with previous findings on the use of higher order “theory of mind” (TOM) reasoning at this age. Six‐year‐olds are thus able to use their higher order TOM capacities for peer coordination, which marks an important achievement in becoming competent social collaborators.     

What might readers want? Unexpected responses from Malaysian Literature in English students and suggestions of potentiality in text selection

This article is based on the premise that mandated reading in literature classrooms may be perceived as an imposition and disliked by students. Attempts to address that scenario have suggested that text selection should be given more consideration to promote reading engagement, particularly by choosing texts which are familiar to the lifeworlds of students. Aside from ideas of familiarity and student preferences in reading, this article argues that text selection could also take into account text potentialities, as proposed by Louise Rosenblatt, from which three aspects are discernible; potentiality for participation, potentiality for a sustained reading experience, and potentiality for an enjoyable reading experience. These aspects of potentiality are illustrated and discussed through the literature classroom experiences of two Malaysian pre‐university English literature students. This article contends that ideas of text potentiality help us interpret students' responses to mandated texts and informs discussion among curriculum constructors and teachers about text selection in the literature classroom.     

Long‐term effects of a psycholinguistic treatment for dyslexia

Short and long‐term effects of a treatment for dyslexia are evaluated. The treatment is based on psycholinguistic theory and assumes that dyslexia is due to poor lexico‐phonological processing of words. The treatment is computer‐based and focuses on learning to recognise and to make use of the phonological and morphological structure of Dutch words. The results of the treatment were clear improvements in reading words, reading text and spelling. Effect sizes of standardised treatment gains were large (Cohen's d>0.80 for all variables). Following the treatment, participants attained an average level of text‐reading and spelling. The attained level of reading words and reading text was found to be stable over a four‐year follow‐up period. Spelling showed a slight decline one year after the treatment, but remained stable thereafter. ¹ 1. A preliminary report of the data was presented at the World congress on dyslexia, September 1997, Thessaloniki, Greece.     

Conditions for ‘Upbuilding’: A Reply to Nigel Tubbs’ Reading of Kierkegaard

A Special Issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2005, issue 2, contains an interesting ‘Philosophy of the Teacher’ by Nigel Tubbs. It rejects attempts in pedagogical traditions to ignore or avoid the contradiction between the teacher as master and as servant, and ends with an interpretation of ‘upbuilding’, a central concept in Søren Kierkegaard's writings. According to Tubbs’ reading, the teacher's patient struggle with herself in doubt is the basic condition for upbuilding, whereby the eternal's perfect gift of love is given to the students. I maintain that the original Danish text does not fully support this interpretation and defend an alternative reading. The text says that the condition for receiving the perfect gift is itself a gift of God. Doubt is necessary, but if our doubt were sufficient, we could manage our lives without God, the condition for receiving the gift would not be a gift, and the possibility for receiving the gift would be spoiled both for teachers and students.     

Understanding the Active Ingredients in an Effective Preschool Vocabulary Intervention: An Exploratory Study of Teacher and Child Talk During Book Reading

Research Findings: In order to identify the active ingredients in an effective professional development intervention focused on enhancing preschool vocabulary instruction, this study examines the frequency with which teachers and children discussed theme-related vocabulary words during shared book reading. Head Start teachers received 1 year of training focused upon early vocabulary development. Children's vocabulary skills were assessed in the fall and spring of the school year. In spring, teachers read a storybook to their classroom, and teachers’ and children's remarks about theme-related vocabulary during the reading—including contextualized and decontextualized statements as well as verbatim repetitions of one another's statements—were coded. Practice or Policy: Results of multilevel models showed that more frequent references to thematic vocabulary by teachers were linked to stronger child vocabulary development. Although children's vocabulary references were not uniquely predictive of vocabulary learning, teachers’ repetition of children's remarks contributed to children's vocabulary gains.     

The Effect of Articulatory Suppression on Greek Children's Reading of Greek

Abstract The objective of this study was to investigate the role of phonological recoding in young children's reading of Greek. For this, third‐grade Greek children were asked to read and comprehend text while they were concurrently suppressing subvocal articulation. Their performance (in terms of reading times and free recall) was compared to that of a control group of normal reading. The results showed a disturbing effect of articulatory suppression on the subjects’ reading latencies and retention of text. These findings were taken to imply that third‐grade children's reading of text was partly based upon pre‐lexical phonological representation and also that their retention of text partly depended upon a phonological memory code.     

How children talk together to make meaning from texts: a dialogic perspective on reading comprehension strategies

This study considers reading comprehension as a dialogic transaction of making meaning from text. The concept of text and reading is taken to include the visual and multimodal as well as written forms. Case studies of children discussing texts are analysed to explore how children engage in inter‐mental and intra‐mental processes of reading, between themselves as readers and between themselves and the text. The findings show that children's use of language, which is open, hypothetical and questioning, enables different interpretations and priorities for discussion. The use of imagination and empathy, to enter the world of the text to understand it, trigger creative responses as the children make meaning together. More than merely promoting the teaching of comprehension skills to children, the paper demonstrates how meaningful and exciting responses can be promoted through children reading together and teachers encouraging creative dialogue.     

The professional reader and the text: insights from L2 research

This paper provides an overview of recent research related to the reading process, where this is of particular relevance to Reading for Professional Purposes (RPP), a term which refers to any reading activity carried out for purposes connected with work or study (academic or professional) whether in the first language (L1) or in a foreign language (L2). Key elements of the professional reading process are highlighted, with specific reference to the role of background knowledge and schema theory and to the controversial issue of whether reading in a first and a second language is a linguistic or a reading problem. Findings from a variety of relevant research areas are considered, including the process of inferencing, the concepts of coherence and cohesion, the structure of professional texts, reading strategies used by scientists when reading professional literature, the role of culture in professional text structuring and the concept of reader-responsible vs. writer-responsible languages. The review concludes by examining some limitations inherent in applying theories and models of reading to RPP.     

“Interpersonal” Clients,Students, and Supervisees: Translating Robert Kegan

The counseling profession prides itself on its developmental focus. However, counselors, counselor educators, and supervisors have generally applied only phasic, and not stage, theories to counseling and supervision practice and have not incorporated developmental concepts into their teaching. This article continues the effort of rectifying this situation by explicating the relevance of R. Kegan's (1982, 1994) subject‐object theory for counseling, supervision, and counselor education. The author reviews Kegan's (1982, 1994) interpersonal and institutional stages and applies the theory to promoting development beyond the interpersonal stage in 3 case illustrations: a counseling case, a counselor educator's experience, and a supervision challenge.     

Preschool teachers’ literal and inferential questions and children's responses during whole-class shared reading

This study examined the extent to which preschool teachers used literal and inferential questions during classroom-based shared reading. Specific foci included (a) investigating the association among the level of literal or inferential language in the text, teachers’ text-related questions, and children's responses using sequential analysis, and (b) examining the relation between teachers’ inferential questioning and children's vocabulary outcomes. Participants included 25 preschool teachers and 159 four-year-old children. Teachers videotaped their whole-class shared reading of an informational narrative text. Teachers and children's extratextual talk was analyzed and children completed standardized vocabulary assessments in fall and spring of the academic year. When reading this informational narrative text, teachers posed, on average, slightly more inferential questions than literal questions. Significant sequential associations were observed between the level of teachers’ questions and child responses, with inferential questions consistently eliciting inferential child responses. Few characteristics of teachers’ questions were associated with children's vocabulary outcomes. Results suggest that preschool teachers can use inferential questioning to encourage children to participate in conversation at complex, inferential levels; informational texts appear to provide a successful context for this inferential discourse. Implications for teachers and allied professionals are discussed.     

“Ah,I know why…”: children developing understandings through engaging with a picture book

This article describes part of a study that explored the responses of nine‐ and ten‐year‐old children during a picturebook read aloud in a small group setting in a New Zealand classroom. The read aloud was interactive, where the participants were encouraged to respond to the book and to each other throughout the session. The authors created a framework for analysing the responses, adapting the model of Lawrence Sipe (2008) with its five categories of literary understanding, by expanding on the analytical category to enable a finer analysis of the responses. This article discusses the children's depth of thinking and the understandings they developed as they engaged with the read aloud. It also describes how the adapted framework allowed a closer analysis of these understandings, including the way the elements of art used in the illustrations contributed to the children's ideas. The findings suggest ways picturebooks can be used to promote children's thinking and how teachers can guide discussion about a complex text. Implications for use of the framework in further research are discussed.     

“It came alive outside my head.” Developing literacies through comparison: the reading of classic text and moving image

This article reports on a term's work with students in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in which the adult classic text Silas Marner was studied in both written and film form ( Eliot, 1994 ; BBC/Fo, 1985 ). Through an extended consideration of the structures employed by different forms of narrative, students were invited to consider the knowledge and skills they brought to the development of their own response to different texts. Concurrently they were encouraged to consider the needs of their prospective pupils, as expert readers of moving image, and as novice readers of classic fiction. Crucial to the teaching and learning experience was the consideration of the different, expanding notions of literacy, including visual literacy, tele‐literacy and moving‐image literacy. A key consideration was the interrelationship between these, with narrative as the key link, and the exploration of how these literacies could be mutually supportive within the framework of ‘school’ literacy. The importance of paying explicit attention to the pedagogical practices that foster an engagement with and development of these different literacies was highlighted, as was the need to experience the reading of whole texts in order to foster the development of response.