Pre‐schoolers,print and storybooks: an observational study using eye movement analysis

This study used eye‐gaze analysis to determine the extent to which pre‐school children visually attended to print when looking at two storybooks, to contrast visual attention to print for a print‐salient versus a picture‐salient storybook, and to study individual differences in pre‐schoolers' visual preferences. Results indicated that pre‐school children infrequently attended to print: in a traditional picture‐salient storybook, 2.7% of their fixations focused on print and 2.5% of their time was spent looking in regions of print. The children fixated more frequently on print and spent more time looking in print regions when reading a print‐salient storybook, within which 7% of fixations focused on print and 6% of time was spent in print zones. Effect size estimates showed this difference to be consistent with a very large effect. Little variation in visual attention to print was observed across the ten children, and children's alphabet knowledge was not associated with the variance in children's visual attention to print. Educational implications are discussed.     

Role models and student attitudes toward nontraditional careers

This study investigated the immediate and delayed attitudinal effects of presenting ninth-grade students with career information and role models in two media forms, slide/tape and print. On an immediate measure, both the slide/tape and print treatments had a significant positive effect on student attitudes toward the suitability of nontraditional careers for both men and women. Students also had more positive attitudes toward nontraditional careers included in their treatment than toward those not included. Attitudes of the print and slide/tape groups did not differ significantly from each other. None of the significant differences were sustained on a delayed test administered 8 days later. Several interactions related to gender of student and job were found. More comprehensive programs involving multiple role models and other career-related activities are recommended to increase the probability of long-term changes in attitudes toward the appropriateness of nontraditional careers.     

A comparison of reading and listening performance: computer-controlled speech and printed text presentations

Print-handicapped people enrolled at any level of the education system are expected to acquire the same information as their peers who are readers of printed text. Research which compares performance rates of reading print with auding of materials read onto tape generally reports substantially higher performance by readers of print. The different strategies employed by readers and listeners are said to be responsible for the variation in performance.
This article describes the development of one method and the associated instrumentation which permits a more exact comparison of reading and listening performance. It ensures that important factors such as word rate, timing, inter-word pauses, and overall presentation duration are identical for visual or audio presentations. The inclusion of these factors enables a more direct comparison of reading performance with listening performance at a range of presentation speeds, including accelerated presentations from time-compressed tapes. An investigation which employed this technique for comparing reading and listening performance has provided new findings on how readers and listeners operate. This should provide a more complete understanding of the benefits and limitations of accelerated reading and listening techniques in the educational context.     

透视版画教学看构建特色课程的方略

版画是一种复数的艺术表现形式,具有民族民间艺术的底蕴和根基。版画曾有过半个世纪的辉煌历史,随着信息技术、计算机技术的快速发展,版画正面临着新的发展机遇。怎样承扬传统版画,融入多维的教学资源,是构建版画特色课程的新课题。     

Effects of Processing Time on Comprehension and Calibration in Print and Digital Mediums

This study explored the effects of processing texts in print or digitally on readers' comprehension, processing time, and calibration. Eighty-six undergraduates read print and digital versions of book excerpts about childhood ailments presented in counterbalanced order. Comprehension was tested at three levels (i.e., main idea, key points, and other relevant information). Direct comparisons between print and digital reading demonstrated a significant advantage for reading in print on students' recall of key points and other relevant information but not the main idea. When processing time was added as a mediator variable, it significantly affected the relation between medium and comprehension for all question levels. In terms of calibration, students read more quickly and judged their performance higher when engaged digitally, although their actual performance was much better when reading in print. Implications of these findings for subsequent research are considered.     

Comprehension difficulties after year 4: Actioning appropriately

Abstract

Many children identified with average intelligence exhibit ongoing reading comprehension difficulties after Year 4. They typically have language delays that are possibly due to their disengagement with reading and they do not process information efficiently in working memory. As a consequence they do not adequately learn from their encounters with print and they develop a reluctance to use appropriate self‐monitoring strategies. Many intervention programs have a limited focus by concentrating on word level processes but these may be largely inappropriate for older children with reading comprehension difficulties. What may be more suitable is the use of scaffolding techniques that promote cognitive and motivational engagement in a rich personalised language environment. The article investigates the problems experienced by such children and suggests some appropriate text processing and reorganisation strategies that can be applied to teaching practice.     

Reading Science Text: Challenges for Students with Learning Disabilities and Considerations for Teachers

In science classes, teachers must consider the need for explicit, systematic reading instruction for students with learning disabilities (LD) while navigating the constructivist and activity‐oriented methods typically employed in science instruction. The complexity of scientific information conveyed through print may make reading science texts the greatest challenge that students with LD encounter in school. Fortunately, researchers have established that, by fostering students’ prior knowledge, providing text enhancements, and teaching reading comprehension strategies, students’ understanding of science text is improved. Effective instructional approaches and strategies for reading are reviewed and implications for teaching students with LD noted.     

Composing print essays versus composing across modes: students' multimodal choices and overall preferences

The current study presents results from students' engagement of composing print essays and composing across modes on the same topic. It builds on the premise that print‐based reading and writing should complement and coexist with multimodal pedagogy. A group of Taiwanese adolescent students were invited to complete one print essay and one multimodal product on the same topic of “My favorite place in the world”. For their multimodal product, students were required to use at least two modes (e.g. words and image, sounds and words) in any medium (e.g. video, collage, scrapbook or website) of their choice. It was found that the most frequently used medium for students' multimodal projects was video which incorporated words, sounds and visuals. Most students felt that for the topic of “My favorite place in the world”, their multimodal products helped them to convey their ideas better because they provided the audience with more sensory information. To conclude the paper, a few future research directions are outlined to help move the research of multimodal composing forward.     

Texts as Metaphoric Machines and the Challenge of the Digital

In this essay Anna Kouppanou expands the notion of metaphor from its received meaning to refer to an embodied and material process of connectedness that transforms the domains that it brings together. Because of metaphor's reliance on materiality and exteriority Kouppanou turns to literary texts, which she calls “metaphoric machines.” In doing so she sheds light on the specific way texts, as reading/writing technologies, work through metaphorical processes of association. Through the study of print and electronic literary texts Kouppanou shows that every medium brings contents and domains, such as space and time, together and indeed in specific ways, allowing different forms of association, selective organization, and filtering of information. She also underlines that the mappings between these domains often take place unexpectedly and not always between their respective parts. Finally, she discusses the need for literacies that make the reader/writer/user aware of the metaphorical‐associative power of texts.     

版画教学与长白山文化底蕴的资源构建

版画教学如何适应当代的艺术涌潮,寻找在艺术语境中的自我定位,是一个重要的课题。版画的教学思路应该牢牢根植于长白山地域文化底蕴这块沃土,集长白山的文化资源、满族民间传统艺术资源和地域版画教学资源为一体,形成综合资源构建的合力,才能使版画教学成果具有现代的民族的和地域的艺术特征。具有其教学自身的艺术生命力。     

Writing web‐based distance education courses for adult learners

Abstract

This study examines faculty writing style in Web‐based courses aimed at adult learners, a key audience for university‐level courses. Taking into account independent‐study courses and others, the investigator conducted faculty interviews, looking at written and oral strategies implicit in teaching; print vs. Web formats; and adherence to educational philosophies. Faculty who were interviewed revealed minimal experience in both print and Web realms, minimal style differences beyond teaching netiquette or using occupational jargon, and adherence to active learning or social constructivism.     

Revisiting print exposure: exploring differential links to vocabulary,comprehension and reading rate

Undergraduates (N=171) completed a revised version of the Author Recognition Test ( Stanovich & West, 1989 ). The resulting print exposure scores were divided into two dimensions: personal reading experience (primary print knowledge – PPK) and secondary print knowledge (SPK). Both PPK and SPK were correlated with print exposure, but not with each other. PPK correlated more strongly with reading‐related variables (vocabulary, comprehension and reading rate) than did SPK. Of particular importance, PPK accounted for variance in all three criterion variables after the effects of SPK had been factored out. Thus, these data support the notion that it is the act of reading over and above memory for reading‐related information that furthers the development of linguistic skill.     

Teachers' views on and use of printed materials in a distance learning teacher education course

Despite the heavy emphasis on online learning in recent years, print is still an important medium for course delivery in distance education. Distance educators have argued that, with the incorporation of appropriate access structures, distance learning materials can be self‐instructional and interactive. This study aims to explore the extent to which students on a distance teacher education course considered that the print materials had achieved the course objectives, and how they made use of the in‐text access structures. The results indicate that, although teachers on the course agreed that the materials were able to achieve the course objectives, the extent to which they made use of the access devices varied considerably.     

Letter Names and Alphabet Book Reading by Senior Kindergarteners: An Eye Movement Study

The study monitored the eye movements of twenty 5‐year‐old children while reading an alphabet book to examine the manner in which the letters, words, and pictures were fixated and the relation of attention to print to alphabetic knowledge. Children attended little to the print, took longer to first fixate print than illustrations, and labeled fewer letters than when presented with letters in isolation. After controlling for receptive vocabulary, regressions revealed that children knowing more letters were quicker to look at the featured letter on a page and spent more time looking at the featured letter, the word, and its first letter. Thus, alphabet books along with letter knowledge may facilitate entrance into the partial alphabetic stage of word recognition.     

Relations among home literacy environment,child characteristics and print knowledge for preschool children with language impairment

To contribute to the modest body of work examining the home literacy environment (HLE) and emergent literacy outcomes for children with disabilities, this study addressed two aims: (a) to determine the unique contributions of the HLE on print knowledge of preschool children with language impairment and (b) to identify whether specific child characteristics (oral language ability, print interest) moderated these relations. The sample consisted of 119 preschool children with language impairment. HLE was conceptualised as frequency of storybook reading and literacy teaching during book reading. Frequency of storybook reading was a unique predictor of print knowledge, which is consistent with research on children with typical language. Literacy teaching did not predict print knowledge, which diverges from research on children with typical language. No interactions between the HLE and child characteristics were significant, but language ability and print interest play a role in understanding individual differences in literacy development.     

Interaction between attention directing and cogntiive style

Certain instructional techniques are more effective than others in teaching students who have a particular cognitive style. Analytic (field independent) and global (field dependent) styles of learning in 96 sixth graders were tested using two instructional design techniques. One slide/tape presentation was attentiondirecting; the other used supplementary sound. Both covered the same information. A factor analysis of variance of test scores was made using cognitive style and audio treatment as variables.     

Parent and child attitudinal factors in a model of children's print‐concept knowledge

The present study investigates the role of attitudinal variables, such as children's literacy interest and parents’ reading beliefs, in conjunction with home literacy activities (HLA), in predicting children's print‐concept knowledge. The objective of the study is to test a theoretical model describing the relationship among these variables. This study involved 551 low‐income preschool children. Structural equation modelling was used to test the model. The model was a good fit for the data when parental teaching of reading/writing was used as the measure of HLA. In the model, negative parent reading beliefs and parent teaching predicted print‐concept knowledge. Results suggest that practitioners should consider not only the literacy activities children and parents participate in, but also their attitudes towards those activities.     

You've Read the Book, Now Make the Film: Moving Image Media, Print Literacy and Narrative

This paper outlines findings from a pilot project undertaken by the Centre for Research on Literacy and the Media, a joint initiative by the British Film Institute and King's College London, School of Education. The project involved a group of primary school pupils adapting a text from a print into a moving image medium, and then examined the impact of this translation on their print literacy. The results suggest that informed practical use of media can have benefits for the literacy development of Key Stage 2 pupils. A possible basis for the correlation is explored taking as its focus ‘narrative structure’.     

Educational television as mediated literacy environments for preschoolers

Research on children’s television suggests that preschool programs can facilitate literacy and language development. In 1998 Whitehurst and Lonigan described two interdependent sets of skills involved in literacy acquisition: ‘outside‐in’ or oral language skills and ‘inside‐out’ or code‐related skills. Outside‐in skills support children’s interpretation or understanding of print by placing written language into context through oral language. Inside‐out skills focus on those skills involved in the translation of print into sounds and sounds into print. This study describes the production techniques of Between the Lions that contributed to preschooler’s observed behaviors from the outside‐in and the inside‐out.