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The aim of the study was to examine gender differences in individual and situational interest for narrative and expository texts, as well as relation between two aspects of interest in eight-grade students. The aim was also to examine the relation of individual and situational interest to reading comprehension and academic achievement. The participants were eight-grade elementary school students: 102 boys and 99 girls. As measures of individual interest Reading involvement and Interest for reading scales based on the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (Wigfield, Guthrie & McGough, 1996) were used, as well as Attitude toward recreational reading, and Attitude toward academic reading scales from The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (McKenna & Kear, 1990). Text comprehension was assessed on one expository and one narrative text. After reading each text, and before answering text comprehension questions, situational interest i.e. text interestingness and difficulty was assessed on 5-point scale.GPA and grade in Croatian language were used as indicators of academic achievement. Obtained results showed that girls have higher individual interest in reading and higher situational interest in narrative text than boys, while boys showed more situational interest for expository text than girls. Reading involvement had positive effect on text comprehension as well as academic achievement regardless of gender. However, positive attitudes toward recreational reading were positively related to academic achievement, but only for girls.

Test results after educational reforms in Russia are served to measure schools’ and teachers’ efficiency. In terms of preparing students for testing, teachers focus more on drilling students on the right answers rather than working on the content. This study looks at how well students majoring in education were able to spontaneously use metacognitive strategies for reading comprehension. The results of the experiment show that only 7% education majors sought to establish logical connections between the text fragments in multiple-choice assessment. These data are compared with the data, received in 1990-s.

This study attempts to explore structural variables on reading comprehension of 150 state run university students of psychology and educational fields. The subjects involved were selected through stratified random sampling. This group includes two ways factorial design through random assignment. The variables of this article were investigated in six groups (25 subjects in each group). Each group was asked to recall the text and finish a multiple-choice test. The central instrument included six versions of passage with identical content but different structure .Analysis of recall test indicated that subjects displayed better recall of the text with highly structured passage than others. The outcomes suggested that structural variables have a significant effect on written communication.

Reading is one of the greatest pleasures we experience in our lives. It helps us to be entertained and educated. However, some people find it boring and struggling experience, especially when it comes to reading in a second or foreign language. (Farrel, 2009).The purpose of this article is to review a set of previously published articles in regard to reading comprehension. Having reviewed the related literature, the current problem in reading comprehension is stated and consequently, the findings of this study contribute to a new insight into reading comprehension .Finally a summary of findings is made.

The aim of this paper is to explicate the characteristics and problems of the units for expository text reading in elementary school Japanese textbooks, and to propose some viewpoints to develop new units as cores or elements of curriculum for expository text teaching. The viewpoints are as follows: 1) A typical unit of expository text should contain problem-solving ability, cognitive ability, and critical reading ability as well as basic reading comprehension skills, and should integrate them into a united structure; 2) The system of expository text teaching curriculum should be spiral so that children can learn those abilities and skills, which make it possible to read texts in authentic situations; 3) A new method for explaining the structures of curriculum should be cultivated and the results of the method should function as guiding principles in "teachers' manuals"; 4) A method should be cultivated to develop new teaching materials and organize them into units or curriculum.

The aim of this paper is to explicate the characteristics and problems of the theory of "Logic and Rhetoric of Writers" by T. Saigo, the chairperson of Bungei-Ken. He asserts that we don't have to take much time in teaching expository texts, because good texts can be understood at a first reading, and the most important object of teaching expository text is to help pupils and students to learn "Logic and Rhetoric of Writers". The assertion results from examining of defective practices in the teaching reading comprehension in which the contents of the texts have been regarded as very important and been paid no attention to the characteristics of methods of cognition and expression. Saigo has developed a tentative curriculum from elementary school to secondary school for cultivating the abilities of cognition and expression, and has been improving it through practicing. The curriculum is of great value, because perhaps, it is the first trial to systematize the abilities of recognition and expression as a curriculum of Japanese language teaching, including expository text teaching as an important part of it. A problem to be examined is that it carn be built as a spiral curriculum or not.

Japanese has three types of letters : Kanji (Chinese character), Kana, and Katakana. When learners listen to Japanese texts and try to memorize the contents, they can use those orthographic features of Japanese in some manner. An experiment was carried out to examine the effects of instruction of imaging Kanji-shape on free recall and cued recall of texts in Japanese. Japanese native speakers were required to listen silently an expository text either in short-length condition or in long-length. The subjects were also asked to listen the text either with the instruction of retrieving Kanji simultaneously, which was auditory presented in the text, or not. Main results were that under the condition of retrieval instruction of Kanji, memory performances of the short-length text were better than those of long-length text both for literal aspect and for semantic aspect. It was suggested that imaging Kanji-shapes by listening comprehension of Japanese texts led to encoding orthographic information on Kanji-words and to re-encoding semantic information. These results were further discussed based on working memory with limited processing resources.

The aim of this paper is to explicate the structures and levels of reading the expository texts at the elementary schools. The structures and levels of reading the expository texts can be classified into 2 kinds and 4 levels as follows: Structure I (Reading the texts literally), Structure II (Reading the texts critically); and level 1 (Reading the contents of the texts literally), level 2 (Reading the logical structure of the texts literally), level 3 (Reading the contents of the texts critically), and level 4 (Reading the logical structureb of the texts critically). In many classrooms, ‘Understanding' means the reading of the text at level 1 or level 2, but to become independent readers, children should read the text critically, as they do in the daily lives outside the Japanese language classrooms and schools which mean ‘authentic situation'. In this paper, I have proposed some methods to improve the qualities of reading the texts.

This paper discusses various perspectives on the issue of critical reading instruction of expository text, examining six representative instruction theories. I construct the concept of “critical” frameworks by classifying critical thinking and critical education in a discussion of instruction theories. This framework is constructed by three components: the goal of critical reading; the target of critical reading; the content of teaching. In this framework, the goals of critical reading are “analytical” or “innovative”. The target of critical reading has four elements; argument, figure of speech, background, and ideology. The content of teaching has two elements; “reason” and “reflection”. Examination of six instruction theories revealed three types; (a) analytical and reasonable instruction, (b) analytical instruction involving reflection, and (c) innovative and reflective instruction. Type (a) is considered problematic in previous critical thinking research. Type (b) addresses the problems of type (a). In addition, type (c) incorporates social connectivity. Thus, I propose that it would be valuable for perspectives of critical reading instruction of expository text to further develop type (b) and type (c).

In this manuscript, graduate students’ multiple theses are compared. Furthermore, the study also investigates how reading research affects its linguistic understanding. In particular, the main targets of this study were textual linguistics studies; the development of sentence structure awareness research was temporally compared. First, the studies of Kazumi Tachikawa and Takashi Ichikawa were compared. The research content’s development was ascertained and three perspectives were employed to gain a deeper understanding: (a) a focus on the introduction, comparison, and evaluation of prior research in the new theses; (b) a clarification of sections that follow from prior research and sections that were newly established with regard to the new theses’ methodology, etc.; and (c) a focus on sections for which questions/criticisms are presented by the reader’s existing knowledge regarding concepts that are handled in the new theses. Next, to understand the development of Tachikawa’s study in other viewpoint, texts on sentence comprehension research in cognitive psychology were reviewed. Tachikawa’s study was then considered from the three factors of sentence comprehension, the readers perspective, and the condition of reading. Therefore, the primary focus of Tachikawa’s study was on the sentence factor, consistent with traditional linguistics, but could also be seen as addressing a readers perspective that had been clarified in sentence comprehension research. Furthermore, from the viewpoint of sentence comprehension research, significance of Tachikawa’s study can also be seen as supplementing the sentence approach. Thus, a comparative thesis reading from the perspectives shown above led to a deeper understanding of the key concepts involved in ascertaining the positioning of Tachikawa’s study. The elucidation of these learning processes will be useful for schoolteachers as they research materials to clarify learning processes through the reading of theses in specialist a

The text that students have once read during their classes are often used in summative assessment of reading expository text. In this paper, I investigated factors of continuing the summative assessment by interview with junior high school teachers and considered the solution of the assessment issue in reading instruction of expository texts. As the result of this investigate, I found four main factors: (1) difficult of teacher’s immature view of reading ability and assessment, (2) belief that student and their parents don’t understand the new assessment, (3) dilemma that colleague maintain previous method, (4) difficult of absence of new method in assessing reading expository text. Above all, study of reading instruction of expository texts is needed to approach (4) difficult of absence of new method. Also, the approach is needed to focus on critical reading.

In this article, I attempted critique of ideology to text from ninth grade textbook as a part of constructing system nature of strategic reading to comprehension expository text. First, I expanded framework of comprehension strategy with a focus on critique of ideology. As a result of consideration, I identified two strategies used before critique of ideology and two strategies used during it. The former was as follow, (a) getting to know purpose, speaking subject, and addressed public of text, (b) getting to know diachronic, synchronic contexts surrounding the problem area. The latter was as follow, (c) identifying ideology, the excluded, and the unspeakable by referring contexts, (d) constructing text to effect a change to dominant discourses. Second, I attempted critique of ideology to text from ninth grade textbook. As a result of attempting, I clarified consecutiveness critical reading of argument and critique of ideology and gave these strategies shape. Elaborating strategies identified in this paper, and shaping instruction to teach it learners are issues in the future.

In this paper, I expanded comprehension strategies on reading expository texts with a focus on narrative explanation. First, I considered structure of narrative explanation from the viewpoint of the concept of event and causal connection. Second, I set up reason why narrative explanation has rhetoric from three viewpoints as follow, (1) simulated experience, (2) potentiality for norm, (3) difficulty of criticism. On the basis on these considerations, I analyzed junior high school textbook to identifying comprehension strategies for narrative explanation. As a result of analyzing, I identified comprehension strategies from two viewpoints. One is the strategies for comprehension causal connection between multiple events on narrative explanation and the other is the strategies for comprehension logical consistency on argument through narrative explanation.

In this paper, I considered about comprehension strategies instruction on reading of expository texts with a focus on conditional knowledge. First, I set up three critical conditions as follow, (1) goal of reading, (2) text, and (3) task. These conditions influence the use of conditional knowledge. Second, I theoretically considered the conditional knowledge instruction with a focus on "explicit instruction" "setting of two different types of context" "collaboration with others". As a result, I clarified that learning of conditional knowledge is facilitated when students read expository text in "multiple context" after they read "similar context". Finally, I considered two lesson practices which are conscious to conditional knowledge instruction as follow, (1) the lesson practice by Myke Rock which is picked up by Janice F. Almasi and Susan King Fullerton (2012), (2) the lesson practice by Yoshinori Takao which is picked up Seiji Tsuruda (2010). Through these considerations, I made the theory of conditional knowledge instruction specific as teaching and learning process.

The aim of this paper is to consider about "logic" in teaching expository text. In studies to teach reading expository text, developments of instructional theories brought extension of using the word "logic", and it has a lot of meanings. At least there are four approaches to "Logic", logistic, rhetorical, linguistic, and epistemological. In recent years, Toulmin's model of argument is often used to teach expository text, but the relations among argument, coherence and retoric are not considered enough. In this paper, I analyze them in an expository text entried on Japanese textbook of junior high school.

The purpose of this paper was to develop a framework for the “author concept” of expository texts from a perspective of “knowledge”. The developed framework has the following four features: (1) the author and reader are scientists; (2) the author belongs to the academic world as a producer of knowledge and he/she explains it to the reader belonging to the life world; (3) the author explains this to the reader belonging to the life world as a mediator of the academic world and the life world; and (4) the author and reader belong to the life world in the life world. I used this framework to examine expository texts on natural science used by third and fourth grade elementary school students.

In this paper, I examined the assessment of and instructions for critical reading in expository texts for first-year students at a junior high school. I examined tree points in the experimental practice: (a) the efficiency of using the new taxonomy as a critical reading framework; (b) setting the critical reading rubric to improve instruction and assessment; and (c) the effectiveness of the assessment method to improve reflective thinking as a target to consider a typical learner’s reading feedback. By using a new taxonomy in experimental practice, it is important for the teacher to clearly distinguish the critical skill and disposition, to understand the learner’s reading level for cognitive skill and meta-cognition. This process will help many learners to capture and evaluate the argument. Furthermore, with encouragement to provide feedback will support understanding to realize reflective reading.