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In this study, we compared the effects of two media (Interactive Whiteboards and Paper) on both expository and narrative texts reading comprehension among 5th grade children of primary school. Two texts were constructed, according to the same controlled hierarchical structure. Comprehension was assessed by a multiple-choice questionnaire including three types of questions (surface, semantics, inferential). Results of the comprehension test revealed no difference between the two supports. Regardless of support, we found better performances for the narrative text, as well as an interaction between Text and Question factors, revealing that children had more difficulties to elaborate inferences when reading the expository text. These results are in line with previous findings underlying that texts with a similar structure, with a single-page presentation elicit similar performances on paper and electronic devices. They also provide interesting perspectives about the use and impact of Interactive Whiteboards during reading activities or lessons in classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study developed a learning system that allows teachers to edit assignments designed to teach students the text structure strategy through the use of four phases: instructing, modeling, practicing, and reflecting. A 7-week instructional experiment was conducted in which 84 12th-grade students learned the text structure strategy using this system. The results produced several significant findings. First, the students demonstrated very different patterns of accessing time when using this system, making it possible to classify them into 3 categories or clusters of users: "low-practice-low-reflection students", who spent little time using the system; "low-practice-high-reflection students" who spent most of their time in the reflecting phase, during which they constructed graphic organizers and wrote summaries primarily by referring to the teacher's examples; and "high-practice-low-reflection students" who spent most of their time in the practicing phase, during which they constructed graphic organizers and wrote summaries without referring to the teacher's examples. Second, the students' patterns of accessing time were related to their prior knowledge, Web experience, and learning performance. In particular, the "low-practice-low-reflection students" had the lowest learning performance. The "low-practice-high-reflection students" had a higher frequency of using PCs to access the Web, a lower level of prior knowledge, and higher gain scores than the "high-practice-low-reflection students". These findings are discussed, and several suggestions are proposed for future research work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This quasi-experimental investigation describes the influence of text signals on second language expository science text comprehension. In two course sections, mixed proficiency Korean English language learners (n = 88) read one of two print-based English expository text passage versions. Participants in one section (n = 44) were given a version with interesting but non- important subtopics (NIS) underlined, while participants in the other section (n = 44) were given an alternate version with the same number of substantively important subtopics (SIS) underlined. Participants read the text passage and created a visual map of the text, and then completed a comprehension posttest that measured global inferences (all in English). Analysis of variance of the comprehension posttest data revealed significant differences for the two main factors, proficiency level (Low or High) and text signal condition (NIS or SIS), and for the interaction of proficiency and text signal condition; with Cohen effect sizes, d = Low-NIS (.16) < High-NIS (.56) < Low-SIS (.74) < High-SIS (1.37). Descriptively, both headings and important subtopic terms predominated in the SIS maps, but only non-important subtopic terms and not headings predominated in the NIS maps. Further, the visual map forms, as measured by vector pattern matching and by graph centrality, were also substantially different. Compared to the NIS maps, on average the SIS map forms were more relational and more like the expert's map, while the NIS map forms were more linear, and showed a primacy effect. These results suggest that coherent text signals in these print-based readings strongly influenced bilinguals' science expository text comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]