READING AND CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

This study is an analysis of quantitative research conducted in September 2020, based on a 113-respondent sample unit of adult readers in English (100 Slovak and 13 international respondents). Researchers analysed respondents’ abilities to evaluate a text critically; i.e. to identify its assumed author, genre, organization of the text, and the importance of the text for the reader and his or her community. Research outcomes proved that university undergraduates in Slovakia do not possess a good command of critical reading skills for academic reading in four out of five items. International students outscored Slovak students in two items; the research proves the need to intensify preparation of undergraduates in critical thinking in order to fit the needs of a changing society and reading load.

Audiovisual Learning in Dyslexic and Typical Adults: Modulating Influences of Location and Context Consistency

Learning to read involves efficient binding of visual to auditory information. Aberrant cross-modal binding skill has been observed in both children and adults with developmental dyslexia. Here, we examine the contribution of episodic memory to acquisition of novel cross-modal bindings in typical and dyslexic adult readers. Participants gradually learned arbitrary associations between unfamiliar Mandarin Chinese characters and English-like pseudowords over multiple exposures, simulating the early stages of letter-to-letter sound mapping. The novel cross-modal bindings were presented in consistent or varied locations (i.e., screen positions), and within consistent or varied contexts (i.e., co-occurring distractor items). Our goal was to examine the contribution, if any, of these episodic memory cues (i.e., the contextual and spatial properties of the stimuli) to binding acquisition, and investigate the extent to which readers with and without dyslexia would differ in their reliance on episodic memory during the learning process. Participants were tested on their ability to recognize and recall the bindings both during training and then in post-training tasks. We tracked participants’ eye movements remotely with their personal webcams to assess whether they would re-fixate relevant empty screen locations upon hearing an auditory cue—indicative of episodic memory retrieval—and the extent to which the so-called “looking-at-nothing behavior” would modulate recognition of the novel bindings. Readers with dyslexia both recognized and recalled significantly fewer bindings than typical readers, providing further evidence of their persistent difficulties with cross-modal binding. Looking-at-nothing behavior was generally associated with higher recognition error rates for both groups, a pattern that was particularly more evident in later blocks for bindings encoded in the inconsistent location condition. Our findings also show that whilst readers with and without dyslexia are capable of using stimulus consistencies in the input—both location and context—to assist in audiovisual learning, readers with dyslexia appear particularly reliant on consistent contextual information. Taken together, our results suggest that whilst readers with dyslexia fail to efficiently learn audiovisual binding as a function of stimulus frequency, they are able to use stimulus consistency—aided by episodic recall—to assist in the learning process.

I Feel Less Blue When I Read With You: The Effect of Reading Aloud With a Child on Adult Readers’ Affect

This study examined the potential benefits of shared reading with a child on adult readers’ mood. In two experiments, young adults were randomly assigned to either read storybooks with a child or to read the same books aloud alone. In both experiments, readers experienced more positive emotions than those who read the story aloud alone. In Experiment 1, the level of interactivity between the reader and child also positively correlated with readers’ experience of positive emotions. In Experiment 2, participants who read with a child aligned their own book preferences with those of the child. Overall, participants preferred the longer and more complex storybook as it gave more opportunities for the reader and child to interact. These findings support the hypothesis that simple read-aloud experiences are not only positive for children, but have the potential to also positively impact the mood of adult readers who share books with a child.

https://www.ijherjournal.com/journaldetail/strategic-behaviour-in-the-service-of-comprehension-of-texts-in-frensh-as-foreign-language_120#:~:text=STRATEGIC%20BEHAVIOUR%20IN%20THE%20SERVICE%20OF%20COMPREHENSION%20OF%20TEXTS%20IN%20FRENSH%20AS%20FOREIGN%20LANGUAGE

This article proposes to emphasize the importance of strategies in the construction of meaning by reading in French as a foreign language. To this end, we have chosen to use the data collected as part of the «French language improvement» course for 3rd year students with a Bachelor’s degree in Translation at Badji Mokhtar University in Annaba. Our doctoral research aims to describe the strategies of understanding by these adult readers while trying to verify how they proceed to overcome their difficulties‎. Keywords: Reading, Frensh As Foreign Language, Comprehension, Strategies, Text.

‘I shouldn’t even be telling you that I shouldn’t be telling you the story’: Pseudonymous Bosch and the postmodern narrator in children’s literature

This article furthers the somewhat underdeveloped area of research regarding the consideration of complex theoretical concepts such as postmodernism and metafiction in relation to children’s literature by concentrating on a stunningly complex—although by no means rare—experimental text aimed at 8–12 year-olds. Using The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch as example, I examine how children’s literature can use such strategies to engage a child-reader and make them a tangible part of the construction of the novel. Drawing on elements of Text World Theory, diegetic narrative levels and the concept of the internal author, this study primarily explores the role of the interactive, visibly inventing, postmodern narrator, and, by extension, the dramatization of the reader as a part of the story. Framed against an academic background in which children’s literature was deemed unworthy of study or outright dismissed, this article illustrates why children’s literature is not only worthy of rigorous academic study in its own right but also that it often readily displays enough literary, linguistic, and narratological complexities to rival even the most sophisticated literature for adult readers.

Lene Asks Kjære Rikard som utgangspunkt for utvikling av emosjonell literacy og mentaliseringsevne

The article explores whether reading Lene Ask’s documentary graphic novel Kjære Rikard (‘Dear Rikard’) may provide children and adults with training in, and an increased awareness of the importance of, emotional literacy and theory of mind. In order to investigate this question, the authors of the article conduct a close reading of Ask’s novel, using terminology from narratology, picture book and comics’ theory, and look for connections between the findings from the analyses and insights from reader-response theory and cognitive literary studies. The authors suggest that in combination, Ask’s fictive and documentarist drawings and the excerpts from the hand-written correspondence between young Rikard in Stavanger and his father, a missionary in Madagaskar in the 1890s, invite both children and adult readers to develop a keen sense of the value of emotional literacy and theory of mind.