Reading Instruments: Objects, Texts and Museums

Science educators, historians of science and their students often share a curiosity about historical instruments as a tangible link between past and present practices in the sciences. We less often integrate instruments into our research and pedagogy, considering artefact study as the domain of museum specialists. We argue here that scholars and teachers new to material culture can readily use artefacts to reveal rich and complex networks of narratives. We illustrate this point by describing our own lay encounter with an artefact turned over for our analysis during a week-long workshop at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. The text explains how elements as disparate as the military appearance of the instrument, the crest stamped on its body, the manipulation of its telescopes, or a luggage tag revealed the object’s scientific and political significance in different national contexts. In this way, the presence of the instrument in the classroom vividly conveyed the nature of geophysics as a field practice and an international science, and illuminated relationships between pure and applied science for early twentieth century geologists. We conclude that artefact study can be an unexpectedly powerful and accessible tool in the study of science, making visible the connections between past and present, laboratory and field, texts and instruments.     

文本的多模态化与多元识读能力研究

在视觉文化语境中,当前文本形式越来越倾向于声音、文字、图像等的结合,使得语言与其他形式符号相互依赖的程度逐渐增加。该文通过分析视觉文化对文本和儿童阅读的影响,以多模态话语分析理论为基础,研究文本的多模态化,强调阅读要注重在多模态语境下培养儿童多元识读能力。     

英语阅读中的句法和篇章

本文试图从名法分析和篇章分析在英语阅读中的作用及相互关系，说明句法分析和篇章分析密不可分。从而阐述了英语阅读必须从句法分析上升到篇章分析。在教学中注意篇章分析，能培养学生的认识能力，促进他们积极思维，提高他们的创新意识能力。     

Perceptual Span in Oral Reading: The Case of Chinese

The present study explores the perceptual span, that is, the physical extent of the area from which useful visual information is obtained during a single fixation, during oral reading of Chinese sentences. Characters outside a window of legible text were replaced by visually similar characters. Results show that the influence of window size on the perceptual span was consistent across different fixation and oculomotor measures. To maintain normal reading behavior when reading aloud, it was necessary to have information provided from three characters to the right of the fixation. Together with findings from previous research, our findings suggest that the physical size of the perceptual span is smaller when reading aloud than in silent reading. This is in agreement with previous studies in English, suggesting that the mechanisms causing the reduced span in oral reading have a common base that generalizes across languages and writing systems.     

A Longitudinal Study of Visual Perceptual Training and Reading Achievement

Abstract

The authors lamemt the fact that there does not seem to be much agreement as to the proper method of scoring tests The use of the scoring formula is advocated by some and criticized by others. Literature is reviewed showing that the basic assumptions behind the scoring formula (namely that all wrong answers are due to chance guessing) are false. Arguments are presented for and against the continued use of the formula, with the conclusion that its use cannot be justified. A new aspect of this question, that use of the formula may create behavior patterns detrimental to ingenuity and creativity, is also presented.     

Reading, writing, and remediation: Perspectives on the dyslexic learning disability from remedial outcome data

This article addresses the problem of what constitutes effective remediation for developmental dyslexia, combining neuropsychological and applied cognitive perspectives on specific reading disability. Despite its high prevalence, whether the disorder is amenable to treatment and what constitutes effective treatment were questions which, until recently, remained essentially unaddressed by properly controlled evaluation studies. Positive results from controlled remediation studies and experimental training paradigms with disabled and poor reader samples are reviewed. As part of a clinical research program at The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, we have completed a series of treatment outcome studies with dyslexic samples (cumulative N = 285) in which we evaluated the efficacy of different programs designed to remediate the reading and reading-related deficits of dyslexic children and adolescents. Results from one of these studies are summarized to illustrate the unique perspective afforded through remedial outcome data: Emphasis is placed on what the results of such studies may reveal of dyslexic learning disabilities.     

语篇信息性与外语阅读教学

信息已经成为信息时代社会发展的重要资源之一。不同领域的学者从各自的角度对信息作出了不同的论断。语篇信息性解读的依据是理解,语篇信息性解读与阅读理解,两者之间关系密切。在语言学界,篇章的信息性理论研究已经得到关注并开始应用于教学。本文从语篇信息理论出发,探讨理论在阅读理解中的应用,旨在提高学生在阅读中更有效、更准确获取信息的实际能力。     

Structural Change,Leadership and School Effectiveness/Improvement: Perspectives from South Africa

This article comments on leadership within mainstream literature on school effectiveness/improvement, where it is almost always considered to be a factor of change. The article argues that systemic school improvement, particularly for disadvantaged children, is inextricably linked to wider social, economic and political conditions—in South Africa’s case, the political transition from apartheid to democratic government. These structural conditions and specific historical contexts are often glossed over in models of school effectiveness/improvement. Through an analysis of dysfunctional and resilient schools as a legacy of apartheid, and of the slow reconstruction of education in the post‐apartheid period, the article argues for the importance of political legitimacy and authority in school improvement. The article concludes by suggesting that states in transition require a different theoretical lens in order to understand the impact of wider social changes on schools. In such societies, the establishment of legitimacy and authority is a precondition for sustainable effectiveness and improvement, and this has implications for theorising the role of leadership in school change more generally.     

Print and Image Integration of Science Texts and Reading Comprehension: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) was the foundation for this study that explored the effect of science text and image integration on grade 9 students’ reading comprehension. Two texts in Chinese on the moon phase with different print and image integration were compared—a traditional textbook (TT) used in Taiwanese junior high schools and a systemic functional linguistics text (SFLT) created by the authors for this study. These two texts contained similar concepts but had major differences in several features: technicality, representational structure, degree of modality, and interaction between print and image. A control-experimental design with pretest, posttest, and semi-structured interviews was used. In total, 132 junior high school students were randomly assigned to two groups: one group (n=69) read the TT and the other group (n=63) read the SFLT. Sixteen students with both high and low performances in the posttest were purposely selected as the subjects of the follow-up interviews. Major findings were: (a) students who read the SFLT demonstrated significantly better achievement than those who read the TT, and (b) students who read the TT generated more misconceptions about the moon phase and had greater difficulty in making sense of the images than the students who read the SFLT. Accordingly, SFL may serve as a useful theoretical framework and tool in the design of textbooks and may have a practical application in the science classroom.     

从横组合和纵聚合关系看英语阅读中的文本分析

从索绪尔的横组合和纵聚合关系出发对英语文本进行分析,剖析这两种关系在学生阅读理解过程中所起作用,提出学生在语篇阅读过程中所需注意的问题,旨在完善传统阅读教学的不足之处,提高英语学习者的阅读理解能力。     

Utilizing Nonfiction Texts to Enhance Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary in Primary Grades

Many primary grade students are not afforded nonfiction-rich opportunities, with fiction comprising the majority of books read aloud in classrooms. With the Common Core Standards recommending that half of the texts made available to students be nonfiction, educators are increasing their use of informational text. The present study explored the impact of explicitly teaching reading comprehension and vocabulary strategies with nonfiction text compared to fiction text in primary-grade classrooms. Two first-grade (n = 39; 25 male, 14 female) and one second-grade class (n = 20; 13 male, 7 female) participated in the quantitative study that followed a repeated measures design in which the students alternated every 2 weeks between fiction-based instruction and nonfiction-based instruction for a total of 8 weeks. Vocabulary and use of comprehension strategies were assessed at the end of each 2-week period. Overall findings indicated that students were better able to apply the comprehension strategies and define vocabulary following nonfiction-based instruction; they also were more motivated to read informational text. The authors recommend that teachers use more nonfiction texts in the primary grades to support students’ reading comprehension and vocabulary development.     

Discourse Analysis and Multimodal Meaning Making in a Science Classroom: Meta-Methodological Insights from Three Theoretical Perspectives

Research in Science Education - This article provides rich insights into the process of data generation for discourse analysis from three separate studies of the video recordings of a single...     

从衔接和主位化角度解读四级阅读文

对于非英语专业的学生来说,阅读能力一直是应该掌握的主要学习技能。然而,英语教师总是抱怨学生的阅读比他们预期的速度慢,理解能力底。本文试图运用衔接及主位理论,并结合认知的思维过程,来探索解读四级文的有效方法。     

从理性和感性角度认识风景写生色彩

风景写生色彩是使用科学原理,通过分解得到波长不同的光波反射到人的眼睛,再经过心理反应运用各种绘画媒介和语言将这种有色光传达在二维空间中的过程。这个过程既离不开理性的分析,也少不了感性的表现。     

充溢人文情怀的反腐文本——《人间正道》、《中国制造》、《至高利益》读后

周梅森的《人间正道》、《中国制造》、《至高利益》以人性——权力作为核心,采用叙事手法,将反腐与人文有机融为一体,成为中国当代反腐文学的重要开拓,充溢人文情怀的反腐文本起到了主导文化对社会群体整合和秩序安定的作用。