The present study examines the effects of pre-reading question quality and reading time durations on the recall and comprehension of an explanatory text. The participants were junior high-school students (Experiment 1) and university students (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, there were three question conditions (direct sentence-related, indirect sentence-related, or no question but longer reading time), and four question conditions in Experiment 2 (with a “no question and same reading time” condition added to those of Experiment 1). In both experiments, a free-recall test and a comprehension test were adopted under both immediate and delayed conditions as dependent measures. The major findings are as follows: (1)The effects of question type and reading time duration differed between the junior high-school students and the university students for each test. (2)Indirect sentence-related questions facilitated reading comprehension and recall for the university students, although this trend was partial and weak. The tendency was not observed for the junior high-school student. (3)The longer reading time was effective for both the junior high-school students and the university students in terms of understanding the text conclusion. However, understanding for the initial part of the text was not influenced by the type of the pre-reading questions or by the longer reading time. These results are discussed from the perspectives of language proficiency of readers and the test task. The findings of the study suggest that pre-reading questions that ask junior high-school students to respond with information concerning the conclusion part of a text can be important for enhancing their reading comprehension.

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  Toriyama Hiraku (1873-1914) is known as a composer of Gunkan March, or as a mentor of Minamikata Kumagusu at Wakayama Junior High School. Toriyama has also made a major contribution to developing childrenʼs reading materials as a translator of the Enlightenment at the beginning of the Meiji Period. However, not much has been mentioned about his work in modern history of Japanese childrenʼs literature, history of textbooks, or history of the Japanese language.
  In this article, I first examined Toriyamaʼs representative translated textbook, Saazento Monogatari. The book was translated from part of a reader, Sargentʼs Standard Reader, published in the United States, and consisted of two volumes, both of which were published from “Kanabumishiya” in 1873 (the first volume) and in 1874 (the second volume). Writers of translated textbooks at that time wrote in the style mixing hiragana and Chinese characters, which made it hard for children to read on their own. Unlike other writers, Toriyamaʼs translation was simple so that children were able to enjoy the stories. In addition, while many other translators of the Enlightenment added moral lessons at the end of the stories, Toriyama tried to provide simple translation that was close to the original text as much as possible, which enabled him to introduce the literary expressions of the original stories.
  Toriyama should be regarded as a pioneer for publishing many books such as Saazento Monogatari written only in hiragana. He used only hiragana for writing books which cover all of the areas of elementary education under the “Gakusei (the Educational Law, 1872)” of modern times Japan. Toriyama is the only person of the time who published textbooks for each area of elementary education, with a strong will to promote the orthography reformation.
  Among the books written only in hiragana, Kiuriichiroku, which was published in January 1874, had a distinctive feature. Reading the interaction among an aunt and three girls, we can still enjoy the conversation of the children as well as the auntʼs tone in explaining scientific facts metaphorically. It was a typical writing style of the scholar of the Enlightenment, Toriyama Hiraku. The book should be highly respected as pioneering work of“childrenʼs scientific readings”as well as conversational prose.
  In sum, Toriyamaʼs work at the beginning of the Meiji Period was extremely initiative and had an educational significance. However, childrenʼs readings written only in hiragana were not widely accepted. The goal of education at the time was to introduce children to the writing styles of adults as soon as possible. As a consequence, Toriyamaʼs attempt did not meet the educational needs of the time. Nevertheless, Toriyamaʼs works deserve an attention and should be highly re-evaluated for developing and publishing childrenʼs readings which can be used as textbooks of school subjects.

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  Students from non-Japanese background, particularly those who have not started to learn kanji characters, experience difficulties with kanji characters when studying Japanese. Some verbs in Japanese are expressed by adding the light verb “suru”. This paper focuses on such verbs, usually written with kanji characters plus suru, with a view to improving the Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) of students from non-Japanese backgrounds.
  Kageyama (1980) points out that verbs consisting of kanji characters plus the Japanese suru are derived verbs. From the perspective of language economy, derived verbs are an efficient form of expression. Senoo (1999) outlined semantic rules for derived verbs. Based on that, the present paper suggests that Japanese elementary schools should teach independent “suru” verbs and kanji characters.
  Martin (1975) states that, in Japanese, there are some nouns that can be used as verbs by adding suru. He refers to such nouns as verbal nouns. The nouns in (1) are examples of verbal nouns.
    (1) anki, tozan, and benkyo
These nouns are usually represented orthographically with kanji characters and can be used as verbs by adding suru. However, these verbs differ from usual nouns, examples of which are provided in (2), neither in form nor in grammatical function. As shown in (3), usual nouns are grammatically meaningless if suru is attached.
    (2) empitsu, shokunin, and tsukue
    (3) *empitsu-suru, *shokunin-suru, and *tsukue-suru
Comparing the nouns in (1) with those in (2), one may note that the verbal nouns express either motion or the occurrence of an event. However, other nouns-such as those presented in (4)-can also refer to motion or events.
    (4) komamawashi, netasagashi, hosiuranai, and bōrunage
Moreover, as indicated in (5), there are some verbal nouns that do not refer to motion or the occurrence of an event.
    (5) ichi, inkyo, and kushin
  In conclusion, the paper argues that it would be much more appropriate to classify verbal nouns as a single grammatical unit, because it is not possible to identify a verbal noun solely on the basis of its meaning.

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  The purpose of this study is to investigate why foxes appear most frequently as animal characters within primary school Japanese language textbooks, particularly in stories.
  A folk-cultural approach is used to analyze textbook stories using the following procedure. First, all the animal characters within textbook stories are classified and analyzed with a method similar to the story-type classification of folktales, and the differences between foxes and other animals are examined. Second, folk beliefs and traditions relating to foxes are examined with a view to elucidating the characteristics of foxes within Japanese folk culture. Finally, the characteristics of foxes identified within textbook stories are compared with those in the folk culture, in order to examine the relations between them.
  The results indicate that there are contradictions relating to fox characters within folk culture,as they are associated not only with bringing people good harvests and happiness but also with bringing death and misfortune on other occasions. Thus, the fox is depicted as assuming complex characteristics and, consequently, as a symbol of a pluralistic mentality. Foxes within Japanese language textbooks are found to manifest the same complex characteristics as within folk culture, and this complexity differentiates foxes from other animals. The fox is often the preferred choice for the leading character of textbook stories, especially in stories for upper-grade children because of its complexity/versatility.
Accordingly, the fox appears the most frequently within the Japanese language textbooks at primary schools.

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