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Picturebooks play an important role in elementary education, but few teachers focus on their text-picture relationships. This qualitative study examined the impact of four narratives with different text-picture relationships on fourth graders' explicit recall and inference making, both immediately after reading and after a one week delay. The four relationships were loosely symmetrical, complementary, text carries the narrative, and ironic or contradictory. Twelve urban fourth graders, four reading at or above grade level, four reading moderately below grade level, and four reading significantly below grade level, met with the researcher on six occasions. The purpose was to read, retell, and answer questions about a story in a one-to-one setting. While each student read and responded independently, each received help with word recognition. Data consisted of transcriptions of oral retellings, interviews, and a cued recall measure. Transcriptions of story retellings were parsed into kernels and coded according to cognitive process, either explicit or implicit, and source of content. Possible sources were text, picture, text-picture overlap, and background knowledge. Five categories of inference emerged from the analysis of story retellings: local inferences, global inferences, associations, evaluations, and misinterpretations. An analysis of codes and categories and interview data revealed that the text-picture relationship influenced the sources of content readers recalled, inferences they constructed, expressed ease of story comprehension and recall, and expressed level of enjoyment. It also affected the meaning that students at three levels of reading ability constructed. Given that different text-picture interactions provide support for specific comprehension processes, this study suggests that teachers should consider the relationship of words and images when selecting reading materials for their classrooms, especially when students are reading below grade level. / CITE/Language Arts

In response to the literacy achievement gap that exists between high-poverty, high-minority school districts and their counterparts, a quasi-experimental multi-measure study was designed to increase the reading skills and attitudes of ninth grade students. The goal of this study was to increase the volume of on-level, self-selected reading with the expectations of positively impacting the students' fluency, comprehension, and motivation. Two teachers participated in the study, each teacher taught both a control and a treatment group. The treatment consisted of twenty minutes of daily increased volume of on-level, self-selected reading. The students also kept daily response logs. The results did not support the expectations. At the end of the sixteen-week study, the data showed that the treatment was not effective in increasing the fluency, comprehension, and motivation of ninth grade students. Other studies should be done that address the time factor in this study. / CITE/Language Arts

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