The article tried thrown light on the “modern style of writing” in Japanese teaching materials in Taisho-Showa old-system junior high school. The author discussed the objective of tutorship and the value in the educational contents of the secondary school education; which might be affected by the educational needs of the local society. The clarification of an argument of people is essential in connection with educational practice simultaneously with changes of the regulation. The argument of Kyoiku-zasshi [the educational magazine] was used mainly in the research. The author elucidated that the students were expected to become the “thought-rich” writer to read and learn “modern style” in the Taisho-Showa contemporary context.

The purpose of this research is to clarify what characteristics picture book reading activities in Kindergarten have regarding the development of children’s social personality. The research adopted is a discourse analysis methodology, through the social system theory of ‘Self Organization’.

Main findings are as follows;

(1) The reading of a picture book as a group activity in a kindergarten is experienced as a self-organized social act in which the following two reading actions are integrated;

・Emergent and interactive reading activities through the presentation of illustrations and recitation of texts.

・Reflective and autonomous reading behavior of children through the reading texts as participation in a social group activity.

(2) Emergent and interactive reading activities are functionally in phase with interpersonal communication in real society.

Reflective and autonomous reading practices are in phase with grasping, consciousness, and planning done autonomously in individual minds. Reading a picture book is an activity of spirally linking these two reading activities, and is an effective language activity for children to acquire the ability to cope with an unpredictable society.

Conclusions are as follows;

Even though a picture book reading activity is a one-time, interpersonal oral communication, picture books as an intermediary maintains consistency and universality. Children reflectively repeat experiences of autonomous reading of texts while following the rules of the reading activity and predicting or summarizing the structure and content of the story of the picture book. As a result, each reading experience is renewed and connected to the next reading of picture books.

Through those activities, children will develop their social being, stimulate their meta-cognition, and will be more inclined to display meaningful self-expression.

This paper aims to classify “self-relevance” to critical essays and propose an explanatory hypothesis for this concept.

Interviews about consciousness while reading with senior high school students were conducted. The following conceptual classification of “self-relevance” to critical essay reading was created as a result: (1) realizing contents of a text as it pertains to body sense, (2) recognizing the importance of contents and themes of a text for oneself, and (3) positioning oneself as an opponent to the text’s author and his/her powers of persuasion. In the light of this classification, especially because it pertains to the aforementioned final point, this paper argues that positioning oneself as an opponent to the text's author and his/her powers of persuasion is worth teaching as a part of consciousness while reading education for students to learn language competence.