With over 765,000 English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students studying in the United States, a greater understanding of the academic requirements and demands these students face while studying in the US is needed. Some of the biggest challenges they face include the amount of reading required and the various tasks employed with academic reading. University reading tasks require more than an understanding of the text. These tasks place a strong emphasis on text comprehension, summary, synthesis, and critical analysis. This is problematic as students, especially ESL learners, lack experience with academic tasks, and many additionally struggle with low metacognitive awareness, limited or low reading fluency, limited vocabulary, and difficulty understanding text organization. This article will present a research-informed website, A Teacher's Guide to Academic Reading, designed for teachers preparing ESL learners for the demands and difficulties of university reading. A Teacher's Guide to Academic Reading specifically informs teachers of academic reading demands and provides resources to help their learners develop fluent reading skills, critical reading skills, and general academic skills.

Stories, themes, concepts and references are organized structurally and purposefully in most books. A person reading a book needs to understand themes and concepts within the context. Schank’s Dynamic Memory theory suggested that building on existing memory structures is essential to cognition and learning. Pirolli and Card emphasized the need to provide people with an independent and improved ability to access and understand information in their information seeking activities. Through a review of users’ reading behaviours and of existing e-Book user interfaces, we found that current e-Book browsers provide minimal support for comprehending the content of large and complex books. Readers of an e-Book need user interfaces that present and relate the organizational and narrative structures, and moreover, reveal the thematic structures. This thesis addresses the problem of providing readers with effective scaffolding of multiple structures of an e-Book in the user interface to support reading for comprehension. Recognising a story or topic as the basic unit in a book, we developed novel story segmentation techniques for discovering narrative segments, and adapted story linking techniques for linking narrative threads in semi-structured linear texts of an e-Book. We then designed an e-Book user interface to present the complex structures of the e-Book, as well as to assist the reader to discover these structures. We designed and developed evaluation methodologies to investigate reading and comprehension in e-Books, in order to assess the effectiveness of this user interface. We designed semi-directed reading tasks using a Story-Theme Map, and a set of corresponding measurements for the answers. We conducted user evaluations with book readers. Participants were asked to read stories, to browse and link related stories, and to identify major themes of stories in an e-Book. This thesis reports the experimental design and results in detail. The results confirmed that the e-Book interface helped readers perform reading tasks more effectively. The most important and interesting finding is that the interface proved to be more helpful to novice readers who had little background knowledge of the book. In addition, each component that supported the user interface was evaluated separately in a laboratory setting and, these results too are reported in the thesis.

本研究旨在探討各種不同種類網路閱讀活動對不同程度學生的回應，進而研究受試者對不同種類網路學習活動對於英文閱讀能力的實際影響。 本研究的實驗對象是十七位台北市信義區一所職業學校的高一學生。在研究初期，研究者以北市職校全民英檢考題之閱讀能力部分測試學生並將他們分出高、中、低三種程度，繼而讓學生接受為期將近四個月不同種類網路閱讀活動訓練。實驗過程中，每項活動後均以各種不同簡單的讀後測驗、練習、筆記或作業來檢視學生利用網路培養閱讀能力之可行性。在學期近結束前，再以另一份北市職校全民英檢考題之閱讀能力測驗題作為本實驗的後測。研究是藉由背景問卷調查以及回饋問卷調查中瞭解不同種類網路閱讀活動對於學生之影響。 本研究採用質與量的分析方法。質的分析涵蓋：（一）實驗對象對於不同種類網路閱讀活動的回應﹔（二）實驗對象應用網路學習對於英文閱讀及網路技巧的影響。量的分析根據SPSS來統計：前後測數值的差異。 根據以上的研究結果發現：（一）學生對於本研究所採用的四種網路閱讀活動（兒童英語學習、網路字彙查詢、網路資料搜尋與設計—WebQuest、教學式的網路會議）感到有趣，尤其是教學式的網路會議﹔（二）網路閱讀活動引起學生主動使用各種不同網路工具來解讀文章內容及找尋有益的英語學習網站﹔（三）經過訓練後，教學成效方面，以高等程度學生進步最多，中等學生次之，低程度學生幾乎看不出進 步。最後，本研究提出一些英文教學上之建議：（一）應選擇有趣、有幫助的網路閱讀活動提升學生的閱讀興趣與閱讀理解能力﹔（二）應藉由網路字典所提供的快速搜尋功能輔助學生找回閱讀英文的信心﹔（三）應盡量利用課後網路閱讀活動，如改良式的網路會議，以提升同儕及師生間的互動並培養自學習慣。希望本研究能提供目前台灣職業學校教師及學生在閱讀教學與學習方面一些啟示與方向。 / This research aims mainly at the effect of different types of web-based reading tasks on different levels of students’ English reading comprehension ability, reading attitude, and motivation. Seventeen vocational high school students were involved in this research. All the participants were given the TVHSGEPT (Taipei Vocational High School General English Proficiency Test) as a pre-test in the beginning of the first semester of the 2005 school year. The participants were then categorized into three proficiency levels—high, middle, and low—based on the scores of the test result. A less than four-month Web-based reading program was then introduced to the participants. During this process, every task was examined through tests, exercises, note taking, or homework to understand the practicality of using web-based tasks to cultivate students’ reading ability. At the end of the semester, another TVHSGEPT was given to the participants as a post-test. However, the research chiefly used background and feedback questionnaires to understand the effects of different web-based reading tasks on the participants. This research adopted both qualitative and quantitative analyses. The qualitative analysis consisted of (1) the students’ responses to different types of web-based reading tasks and (2) the improvement of the participants’ English learning and computer and Web-use skills. By executing SPSS program, the quantitative analysis included the difference of statistical values between the pre-test and post-test. According to the findings, first, the students were interested in the four types of web-based reading tasks (online children’s reading websites, online dictionaries, WebQuest, and modified web conferencing). Second, the web-based reading tasks helped the students to actively find different web-based tools to comprehend reading content and search for new and helpful English-learning websites automatically. Third, high-proficiency students gained the most, then middle-proficiency students; the low-achievers showed very little obvious progress. This research offers some suggestions: first, teachers may select interesting and helpful web-based reading tasks to enhance students’ interest and reading comprehension. Second, through the use of online dictionaries with their quick search functions, students can regain their confidence in learning English. Third, after-school web-based reading tasks such as modified web-conferencing are a good motivator; they also help in cultivating cooperation and relationships among peers and between the teacher and students. In conclusion, this research offers pedagogical implications for vocational high school English teachers who are considering using web-based reading tasks and effective teaching strategies.