<p> Close reading is an enigmatic term with a simple definition: special attention to texts. Key shifts in the Common Core State Standards have led to a renewed interest about close reading instruction among researchers and practitioners of K-12 education. Close reading is particularly salient in secondary settings, where calls to raise text difficulty and increase literacy instruction in the disciplines have placed new demands on middle and high school teachers. But even though close reading is now widespread in secondary classrooms, there is very little research to date on close reading instruction. As such we still do not know how these practices will affect students&rsquo; reading skills and motivation.</p><p> In this dissertation, I offer three article-length contributions to the research base on secondary close reading instruction. First, I synthesize practice-based research on close reading instruction with the aim of identifying best practices for close reading in secondary classrooms. I then present two empirical articles that address gaps in the research literature on adolescent close reading instruction.</p><p> In chapter 1, previously published in <i>Adolescent Literacies: A Handbook of Practice-Based Research</i>, P. David Pearson and I offer a vision for a 21^st-century close reading pedagogy. This vision was influenced by a historical account of close reading&rsquo;s place in adolescent classrooms over the past 75 years and a review of research on secondary close reading instruction. We argue that a 21^st-century close reading pedagogy must encompass considerations of the reader and his or her sociocultural contexts, accept digital and everyday texts as candidates for close readings, and include purposes for reading beyond knowledge building. In light of these goals, we suggest five principles of adolescent close reading instruction: background knowledge, authentic reading and writing, metadiscursive awareness, critical literacy, and dialogically organized discussion.</p><p> In chapter 2, I draw on the principles of close reading instruction outlined in chapter 1 to co-design tests of close reading instruction with a high school chemistry teacher. In this formative experiment, I tested the effect of background knowledge activation on amount and types of questions written about a scientific article; I also tested whether allowing students to choose texts to read about a scientific issue affected the amount of information written on that topic and their motivation to read. In a challenge to Common-Core-era recommendations that background knowledge should be held at bay when closely reading texts, I found that students who had their background knowledge activated with pre-reading activities prior to closely reading an article wrote more argument-generating questions than students who did not engage in pre-reading activities. I also argue that students who were able to choose a text to read closely about a scientific topic online recorded as much accurate information about that topic as students who were assigned a text to read by their teacher.</p><p> In chapter 3, I explore an understudied area of close reading instruction: students&rsquo; everyday digital close reading practices. This article is an ethnographic case study of students&rsquo; out-of-school digital close readings and their teachers&rsquo; approach to digital close reading instruction in the classroom. By comparing these two realms through the lens of cultural historical activity theory, I am able to surface tensions and synergies that may lead to recommendations for close reading instruction that leverages students&rsquo; existing funds of knowledge about digital literacies. Specifically, I found that when teachers designed digital close reading instruction in the service of promoting student-directed learning, it aligned well with students&rsquo; goals when they performed everyday close readings of digital texts at home. </p><p> Together, these three chapters suggest new directions for adolescent close reading instruction and research. In chapter 4, I synthesize across the three articles to highlight common themes and conclude with ideas for future research and lingering questions about the nature of close reading. </p><p>

<p>The primary goal of this study was to investigate, document, and understand the reasons that educators who use graphic novels in their classrooms choose to use them, rather than traditional text. Secondary goals were to identify the classes they teach, and to identify commonalities and shared best practices. Interviews were scheduled, to provide the with data about learning objectives, students? reactions, the books they use, types of assignments, the criteria that they use to define the critical elements for success in their classes, as well as the instructors? own relationships with graphic novels. The phenomenological methodology was determined to be the most appropriate method to understand the teacher?s experiences, and allowed the interview subjects to share and expound on their experiences, thoughts, feelings, images, and memories that described a baseline for the practice of using graphic novels in formal learning environment. The findings of the study were interesting, but not completely conclusive. The primary reason for using comics and graphic novels is teach and promote visual literacy, an important, and a critical skill in contemporary society. Another commonality is high level of student engagement and in the material. Although there are similarities among the other findings, including the encouragement of a love of reading, they actually illustrate the lack of standards and best practices and are based upon the preferences and practices of each individual teacher. The lack of standards also is seen in the teachers approach to using the genre to teach social justice, which ranges from a direct approach to addressing the issue through appropriate titles and assignments, to a more subtle and nuanced one, where individual panels are used rather than a complete book.

Researchers have discovered that native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs) of Mandarin Chinese use different strategies in recalling visual-based texts. Since written Chinese can be represented in logograph, syllabary, and alphabet, it is important to know how and to what extent a representational system (RS) will affect the processing of Chinese texts by both NSs and NNSs. The two surveys in this study explored the effects of RSs on text processing by NSs and NNSs of Chinese. Native groups consisted of subjects from Taiwan and China and were asked in the first survey to match Chinese vocabulary items in pinyin and in characters to their closest English equivalents in meaning. Subjects in the second survey, which included two native and one non-native groups, identified Chinese syllables in either pinyin or zhuyin version, discriminated the differences of sounds of identical characters, and chose the right words to fit in the phrase-level contexts. Two conceptual hypotheses were proposed and tested: (1) NSs of Chinese will demonstrate better performance than NNSs in comprehending texts represented in Chinese characters, and (2) NNSs of Chinese will demonstrate better performances than NSs in comprehending texts represented in pinyin in terms of accuracy and speed. The findings show that (1) Beginning and intermediate non-native learners of Mandarin Chinese benefited from alphabetic representation of the Chinese language in terms of processing speed and accuracy rate--requiring less time and achieving higher performances; and (2) Native Chinese who learned either zhuyin or pinyin as a primer demonstrated lower performances in processing texts represented in either zhuyin or pinyin in terms of speed and accuracy. The findings suggest that logographic representation might provide more rapid and precise access than syllabic and alphabetical representations for text processing at the advanced level. One particular pattern is apparent: An RS which is more efficient at the beginning level will become less efficient at the advanced level and vice versa. This implies that instructors should teach both RSs, logographic plus syllabic or alphabetic systems, to beginning readers, and switch to logographic representation once the learning of the two systems become balanced.

The study was designed to investigate the effects of a parent intervention training program and its impact on reading achievement at the third grade level. Parents of grade three students in a suburban community west of Boston, Massachusetts were trained to use specific reading strategies to tutor their own children. The study attempted to show what would result when parents were trained as tutors to deliver specific oral reading strategies such as: (a) correcting miscues only when they disrupt meaning and after waiting for the child to self-correct; (b) using sustaining cues to encourage the child to use context to identify words; and (c) praising the child for self-correcting and using context. Parents participated in three training sessions that lasted approximately two hours each. Learning materials used were distributed at these meetings. As a screening procedure and to provide a standardized measure of instructional levels (pre-test and post-test) the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test Level 3, Forms K and L, were administered to students in the parent intervention group and to their classmates as control subjects. Students whose parents participated in the parent intervention training program showed significantly more gain in reading scores than did their classmates (t = 13.50, P $<$.05). A second phase of the study involved using a thirty-item questionnaire to survey about one hundred parents of third grade students to identify their attitudes about parental involvement. Parents indicated that it was the responsibility of the school to help parents to increase students' reading achievement. They also wanted the school system to continue to provide programs to meet the needs of students at all levels of learning ability and to put more effort into this goal. The findings in this study suggest that a parent involvement program using individually prescribed, meaning focused activities for teaching reading was an effective means of improving reading comprehension skills of third grade students.

Research in the area of beginning reading has given educators both, the knowledge of the critical foundational skills that comprise reading, and the tools to assess such skills early to prevent the development of reading problems. The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a series of brief measures that can be used to identify children who are at risk of developing reading problems as soon as they enter school. In this era of high stakes testing and accountability, educators must ensure that students are on their way to become proficient readers, well in advance of third grade when standardized tests are typically administered. In the interest of prevention and early intervention, authors of the DIBELS provide a timeline and recommended benchmarks to guide instruction and intervention. This study examines the diagnostic accuracy of DIBELS to predict oral reading fluency using author recommended cut-scores and alternative cut-scores identified as a result of Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis. The accuracy of the DIBELS was assessed across the range of all possible cut-scores in an effort to maximize desirable test characteristics such as sensitivity, specificity, predictive power, or more broadly, decision validity. A sample of 122 students were administered the DIBELS measures in kindergarten and the middle of first grade, followed by oral reading fluency at the end of first grade. Analysis of decision accuracy indicated that the DIBELS measures are highly sensitive in identifying students who are at risk of developing reading problems; however, this occurred at the expense of an inordinate number of false positives. This has important implications for the utility of the DIBELS as a decision-making tool. In an effort to maximize the accuracy of the DIBELS, ROC curves were generated and alternative cut-scores were identified which improved specificity, predictive power, and the percentage of correct classifications.

Treatment integrity has always had a presence in research, but now more than ever must become a priority owing to the changes in Special Education Law. The present study intends to explore the relationship between factors of implementation, treatment integrity of intervention implementation, and reading fluency. Participants included students in grades 2 through 5 and their teachers enrolled in an urban elementary school in the southwest area of the United States. Participants were chosen for possible inclusion on the basis of their fall performance relative to oral reading fluency on a universal screening measure used as part of the district’s Response to Intervention (RTI) plan. Classroom teachers were observed implementing reading interventions and asked to respond to surveys aimed at summarizing their opinions regarding factors related to choice of intervention and implementation. Path analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between two factors of implementation (intervention complexity and acceptability), treatment integrity (adherence to intervention protocol) and student outcomes (oral reading fluency scores). It was hypothesized that low scores for intervention complexity would be inversely related to levels of treatment integrity, which would subsequently be positively related to reading fluency. Moreover, it was hypothesized that intervention acceptability and treatment integrity would be positively related, which would subsequently be positively related to reading fluency. Lastly, it was hypothesized that there would be an inverse relationship between intervention complexity and reading fluency, and a positive relationship between intervention acceptability and reading fluency. Results indicated an inverse relationship between intervention complexity and treatment integrity, suggesting that when complexity was low, treatment integrity was high. A positive relationship was found between intervention acceptability and treatment integrity, suggesting that when acceptability was high, treatment integrity was high. Furthermore, when treatment integrity was high, reading fluency scores were found to be high. An inverse relationship was found between complexity and reading fluency, suggesting that when complexity was low, reading fluency scores were high. Lastly, a positive relationship was found between acceptability and reading fluency, suggesting that when acceptability was high, reading fluency scores were high.

Service delivery and the access to specialized instructions to consumers, encounters many barriers within the profession of speech-language pathology. This state of affairs is largely due to the disparate distribution of speech language services (ASHA, 2005). This restricted access, or an inability to access services, is a result of a number of factors, which include lack of clinicians, insufficient number of facilities in geographic area, and transportation issues (ASHA, 2004e). As a result, students who require specialized reading instruction are not afforded the opportunity to access the necessary treatment. It is essential that the literacy needs of all children be addressed, including those who require specialized instruction (Foorman & Torgesen, 2001; Allington, 1994). Technology, specifically telepractice, is a potential solution to address this dilemma. The purpose of this study is to investigate the reliability and validity of systematic multisensory reading treatment for students who have been identified with a delay in foundational reading skills, addressing foundational reading skills via an internet-based video conferencing system. The results will establish the groundwork for the efficacy, reliability, and validity of internet-based video conferencing as a means of service delivery for foundational reading skills. The foundational reading skills targeted in this study are letter naming knowledge (LNK), letter sound knowledge (LSN) and decoding.

The purposes of the study were to describe how ten infants who ranged from five to thirteen months old responded to books in a day care setting over a five month period, to explore how teachers supported and/or constrained infants' response behaviors, and to understand teachers' and parents' beliefs about infants' capabilities to respond to books. The qualitative methods of participant-observation, formal and informal interviews, written field notes, audiotapes, videotapes, and photography were used for data collection. The results indicated that the infants were able to respond to books through facial expressions, body movements, and verbal responses. They were active in initiating book reading, and were able to show their book preferences. They tended to look for familiar objects and details in illustrations rather than pay attention to the whole content. After being exposed to book reading events, these infants developed positive attitude and skills toward reading. Gradually, book reading events were no longer solely controlled by the teachers, it became joint teacher-infant participation. The results showed that teachers supported infants' book reading in various ways. They made books accessible to the infants, and respected infants' different levels of interest in books. Through scaffolding and language extension, they provided a framework to allow infants to be involved in interactions during book reading. Meanwhile, teachers also encountered various constraints when engaging infants in book reading in a day care setting. The data also revealed that the parents exposed their infants to books at a very early age with various purposes. They made conscious efforts to make book reading enjoyable experiences for their children. Both parents and teachers perceived book reading as an important activity for infants and believed in infants' capabilities to respond to books. This study further elaborated implications for day care teachers and parents which build on its findings.

The present study investigates whether consonant and vowel information make different contributions at the early stage of visual word recognition. In linguistics, the distinction between consonants and vowels has been formalized in the modern theory of phonology, which assumes separate representation and processing of consonants and vowels (e.g., Clements & Keyser, 1983; Durand, 1990; Goldsmith, 1990). In cognitive psychology, such a distinction has been suggested generally in the notion of “islands of reliability”, regarding consonant information as more reliable backbones of word processing at the early stage (Carr & Pollatsek, 1995; Perfetti & McCutchen, 1992; Brown & Besner, 1987). This notion has been more specifically formulated in the two cycles model of phonology assembly (Berent and Perfetti, 1995). The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relative contribution of consonants and vowels in word recognition in silent reading through two different experimental paradigms. In the missing letter paradigm used in Experiments 1 and 2, fixation times on a word during reading were examined as a function of the condition and duration of the missing letter. If consonants have an earlier advantage over vowels in word processing, then missing a consonant should yield a greater cost (i.e., longer fixation times) than missing a vowel. In the fast priming paradigm used in Experiment 3, the relation of the prime and target words was manipulated in terms of consonant and vowel similarity. The consonant-vowel distinction was then estimated in the different priming effects as a function of prime-target relation. The results from the three experiments in this dissertation, in line with the findings of Berent and Perfetti (1995), strongly indicate that there is a clear temporal distinction between consonants and vowels in their contribution to word identification in normal reading. Consonants plays a more important role than vowels in the early stage of word processing. This was demonstrated in Experiments 1 and 2 by the longer fixation time on the target word when the consonant was missing than when the vowel was missing for a brief duration (30 ms) from the onset of the word, and was demonstrated in Experiment 3 by the shorter fixation time on the target word when the prime word was more similar to the target word in terms of consonant similarity than in terms of vowel similarity at the 30 ms prime duration. Further, the results from Experiment 3 suggest that lexicality plays a significant role in the consonant-vowel distinction: the early consonant-vowel distinction was observed only when the prime was a high frequency word.

Previous research has found that when a word like “clam” is presented at the foveal level, its transposed-letter neighbor “calm” is also activated. This activation of multiple lexical candidates causes interference in naming and lexical decision tasks. Here, four eye-tracking experiments were conducted to explore the nature of transposed-letter (TL) neighborhood effects within the context of normal silent reading. Experiments 1 and 2 addressed the processing of target words that have a transposed-letter neighbor (e.g., angel, angle) in comparison to target words that do not have a transposed-letter neighbor (e.g., alien, slope ). Furthermore, Experiment 2 manipulated the sentence context leading up to the target word to explore whether semantic constraints can attenuate neighborhood interference effects. The results indicated that readers do take longer to process words that have a TL neighbor than words that do not have a TL neighbor. This interference effect, however, disappeared when the beginning of the sentence was constraining such that only one of the two members of the TL pair was likely. While both Experiments 1 and 2 explored effects at the foveal level, Experiments 3 and 4 explored the parafoveal processing of transposed-letter neighbors by employing an eye-movement-contingent boundary change paradigm. In Experiment 3, readers received a parafoveal preview of a TL target word that was either (1) identical to the target word (e.g., calm as the preview of calm), (2) a TL-neighbor (e.g., clam) or (3) a substituted-letter (SL) control (e.g., chem). In Experiment 4, a further set of parafoveal preview conditions was explored. Across both experiments, readers' fixation durations on the target words were significantly longer when the parafoveal previews were substituted-letter nonwords than when they were TL neighbors, suggesting that TL neighbors (when presented in the parafovea) facilitate word recognition, rather than inhibit processing. Collectively, these experiments indicate that TL neighborhood interference effects do occur in normal silent reading, but these effects occur late and are influenced by sentence constraints.