The Science of Reading
Online ISSN : 2424-144X
Print ISSN : 0387-284X
ISSN-L : 0387-284X
Volume 53, Issue 3
Displaying 1-8 of 8 articles from this issue
Original Articles
  • An Analysis of Classroom Discussions and Studentsʼ Immediate Recollections
    Tomonori ICHIYANAGI
    2010 Volume 53 Issue 3 Pages 47-59
    Published: December 01, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: May 20, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This study compares classroom discourse and immediate recollections at two school grades to investigate how students acquire the listening strategies necessary for interaction and elaboration related to reading comprehension through discussions where the teacher encourages listening to others. A group of elementary school students was observed during both the fifth-and sixth-grade years(as a fifth-grade class,there were 34 children,with 13 boys and 21 girls,and as a sixth-grade class,there were 35 students,with 14 boys and 21 girls). The two observed classes were both taught by Mr.Hasegawa,who has 23 years of teaching experience,and the observations took place at about the same time during the respective school years. During the observation class at fifth-grade,the selected story was ʻGod in the Straw Bootsʼ,while ʻYamanashiʼ was the story discussed during the sixth-grade observation class. After the storyreading lessons,the students were asked to complete an immediate recall task in which they were required to freely write down the utterances they could remember. The results are follows:(1) Discourse analysis revealed that utterances involving words from the text occurred with the same frequency as utterances not involving words from the text in the discussions for both observation classes. However,the two observation classes differed in the kinds of utterances that the students were likely to pay attention to. As fifth-grade students,the class referred more frequently to utterances involving words from the text than to utterances that did not involve words from the text. In contrast,as sixth-graders,the students were more likely to refer to utterances that did not include words from the text. (2)The immediate recall task revealed that,as fifth-graders,the students were more likely to recall utterances involving words from the text than utterances that did not involve words from the text. In contrast,no significant differences were observed between the types of utterances recalled by the students as sixth-graders. During both observation classes, the students recalled significantly more utterances referring to others than those that did not. (3)An analysis of recall styles revealed that with the increase in grade,there was an increase in the frequency of recollections that not only actively captured an utteranceʼs content in their own words,but also made reference to the individual who had made the utterance.

    In conclusion,these results reveal developmental changes within the acquisition of the listening strategies necessary for interaction and elaboration related to reading comprehension during discussions. Over time,the students appeared to develop the act of listening that allowed them to attend not only to utterances that involve words in the text but also to utterances that do not involve words from the text,and also to refer to the utterances made by others. By listening to such utterances,they learned to reason about utterances in their own words and to remember who spoke them. The findings indicate that, as sixth-graders, the students had developed a growing awareness for classroom discussion. However, no significant differences were observed between the two observation classes in terms of the number of recollections, which would seem to reflect the groupʼs ability to listen by integrating the contents of utterances and capturing the flow of the discussion. This suggests that elementary school students experience some difficulties with this kind of listening. Finally,in addition to developments with age,teacher encouragement to listen to others appears to influence the development of listening strategies among students.

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  • Text mining based qualitative analysis of visual information tools
    Yuki OSADA
    2010 Volume 53 Issue 3 Pages 60-71
    Published: December 01, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: May 20, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    The purpose of this study is to examine memos and reports of discussions. While the term“discussion”may be defined as something mediated through voice between multiple individuals engaged in collaborative thinking, it is difficult for humans to listen to and accurately comprehend a discussion because speech (auditory information)fades immediately. Accordingly,we must employ not only auditory information but also visual information when teaching about discussion. Visual information tools that are used to support discussion are referred to as“visual information tools for discussion”. However,because it is difficult to comprehend an entire discussion,it often necessary to also take notes. In such cases,the discussion is omitted and the details are represented in some kind of figure. However,is it possible for people to appropriately comprehend a discussion based on the information in such memos? This paper examines how the method of writing a memo during a discussion influences the content of a report of the discussion.

    The participants consisted of 161 university students,who were randomly assigned to one of three groups;A:Control group;B:Complete-description group;and C:Visual-description group. Accordingly,group B was a non-structured discussion memo group that encouraged the participants to make strict time-sequenced notes. Group C was a structured memo group that made notes in the forms of abbreviations and figures. This study utilizes the text mining method to analyze differences between the memos and reports. The main findings are that post-discussion reports were more general and objective when using the structured discussion memo approach rather when using the non-structured discussion memo method. In short,the content of the reports changed depending on how memos of the discussion were made. This result indicates that visual information tools for discussion are effective for providing instruction about how to write structured discussion memos.

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  • Kazuro FUKUSHIMA
    2010 Volume 53 Issue 3 Pages 72-82
    Published: December 01, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: May 20, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This study examines the functions of the sentence final particles and interjections“yo”and“ne”within interpersonal communication. The following hypotheses are proposed. First, “yo”and “ne”function in providing information about the speakerʼs attitudes which facilitates the interpretation of their message within interpersonal communication,similar to non-verbal communication represented by paralanguage. Secondly, “yo”marks attitudes that relate to utterances within the speakerʼs cognitive framework,such as the speakerʼs experience,recognitions,judgments,estimations, and wishes. In contrast, “ne”signifies utterances that relate to the listenerʼs cognitive framework, such as confirming meanings,connecting to matters under consideration,and deciding to consent. Thirdly,“yone”is regarded as being a combination of “yo”and “ne”. In order to investigate these hypotheses, this study attempts to apply interpretations based on these hypotheses to utterances within conversational and counseling data. The results support the hypotheses and suggest that “yo”and “ne”function to facilitate the communication of information and to adjust interpersonal relations.

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Reading Guidance Report
  • Miwa INUZUKA
    2010 Volume 53 Issue 3 Pages 83-94
    Published: December 01, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: May 20, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    There is a growing need to foster high-level literacy,such as reading academic texts. The author reports on the authorʼs implementation of an instruction schema for reading academic texts. Specifically, this paper provides an outline of the instruction schema and presents results from an instruction class employing this schema. Sophomores participated in the instruction class(n=10). At first,intrinsic and practical aspects of motivation were highlighted in the class and the instructor explicitly taught some reading strageties and encouraged their use. Then,the instructor implemented the mutual explanation framework. The participants were grouped into pairs and they took turns in explaining and asking questions about the content of the text. The instruction was given for nine days during daily 70-minute sessions. The comprehension test results and the mutual explanation protocols for the four students who participated in all nine days of the instruction course were subjected to analysis. The results indicate that after receiving the instruction,these participants were able to grasp the main ideas of the text better than before receiving the instruction.

    Also,the analysis of the mutual explanation protocols revealed that these participants asked more questions relating to content they did not understand,and they summarized their partnerʼs explanations more than before the instruction. These results suggest that the instruction fostered the participantsʼmetacognitive awareness of their comprehension.

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