Adolescent Readers Research Articles

Kapow! Bam! Wham!

In this article, I discuss how educators can use comic books, like Marvel’s Ms. Marvel, to shatter adolescent stereotypes and constructs. Using a modified version of Petrone et al.’s (2015) Youth Lens analysis, I analyze Ms. Marvel, Volumes 1 and 2, focusing on characterization, images, and themes centered on relationships between adolescents and adults, as well as adolescents and their inner struggles to play an important role in their world. I identified four themes: (a) adults serving as guides, (b) adults and authority, (c) the careless and reckless teen, and (d) adolescents as social change makers. Findings suggest comic books like Ms. Marvel can help adolescent readers become aware of the power they have to change stereotypes while addressing social issues.

Fine motor skills during early childhood predict visuospatial deductive reasoning in adolescence.

Extensive evidence and theory suggest that the development of motor skills during infancy and early childhood initiates a "developmental cascade" for cognitive abilities, such as reading and math. Motor skills are closely connected with the development of spatial cognition, an ability that supports deductive reasoning. Despite the linkage between motor skills and spatial cognition, and spatial cognition with deductive reasoning, no research has explored the developmental connection between early motor skills and reasoning ability, a plausible pathway through which the developmental cascade operates. Drawing data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (N = 1,233; 95% British, 5% other race/ethnicity; 54% male, 46% female; 7% low income, 80% middle income, 12% high income), this study investigated whether there was a relationship between gross and fine motor skills in infancy (22 months of age) and early childhood (42 months of age) and visuospatial deductive reasoning in adolescence (at 10 and 16 years of age). Results indicated that fine but not gross motor skills during early childhood positively predicted reasoning in adolescence. Critically, the fine motor-reasoning association mediated the previously observed link between early fine motor skills and adolescent reading and math ability. These results deepen our understanding of developmental cascade theory and mental model theory by identifying visuospatial reasoning (i.e., mental modeling) as a potential mechanism through which motor skills initiate cognitive development and academic success in reading and math. These findings also highlight the importance of early intervention programs targeting motor skills and illuminate the impact of those interventions on later cognitive and academic skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Adolescents reading texts in LexiaD, a dyslexia-specific Cyrillic font: A mobile eye-tracking study

Recently, LexiaD, a dyslexia-specific Cyrillic font, was tested alongside the widely used Arial font in an experiment during which adolescents with and without dyslexia silently read sentences on a computer screen (Alexeeva et al., 2022). LexiaD showed a worse performance than Arial at the beginning of the experiment, but by the end of it, LexiaD demonstrated a positive effect in feature extraction and similar performance in lexical access, text integration, and global reading processing. We suggest that Arial’s initial advantage can be explained either by its familiarity or by its design features. The current study aims to test these assumptions in adolescents without dyslexia by comparing LexiaD with two popular fonts familiar to adolescents: Times New Roman and Roboto (a default font for the Google applications that is similar to Arial). Participants silently read printed versions of three texts (one in each of the three fonts) while their eye movements were recorded using a mobile eye tracker (Pupil Core glasses). In reading speed measures, Roboto outperformed LexiaD, whereas we found no evidence that Times New Roman’s performance was better than that of LexiaD. Moreover, there was no evidence that the control fonts differed in terms of subjective font familiarity. Therefore, we speculate that it was the design features that contributed the most to Arial becoming a facilitating font in the previous experiment. A study that investigates the efficiency of LexiaD, Arial/Roboto, and Times New Roman in a less experienced group (with participants less accustomed to particular fonts) is required to replicate our results. Involving people with dyslexia in future studies is extremely important.

Screen Time, Social Media, and Religious Commitment among Adolescents

ABSTRACT Research on the impact of new technologies on American youth often fails to consider their impact on religious commitment, and research on adolescent religiosity often fails to consider how technology use may influence adolescents’ religious lives. But the copious amount of time adolescents spend in front of screens and on social media platforms may affect their religious commitment through a process of self-socialization or by outcompeting religion for adolescents’ time and attention. Using data from the National Survey of Moral Formation (N = 3,033), we examine whether adolescent screen time and social media use are associated with religious commitment. We find that screen time is related to diminished religious commitment, and, for private religious outcomes, the negative relationship is stronger among adolescents whose parents are more religious. There is no unique negative effect of social media use on religious commitment except on the scripture reading of adolescents with religious parents. Studies of adolescent religiosity should consider technology use to be an important agent in the religious socialization process. Although social media use appears to pose no major unique challenge to adolescent religious commitment, researchers should continue to explore the effects of new technological developments on youth religiosity.

Gesture-Speech Integration in Typical and Atypical Adolescent Readers.

This study investigated gesture–speech integration (GSI) among adolescents who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) and those with typical hearing. Thirty-eight adolescents (19 with hearing loss) performed a Stroop-like task in which they watched 120 short video clips of gestures and actions twice at random. Participants were asked to press one button if the visual content of the speaker’s movements was related to a written word and to press another button if it was unrelated to a written word while accuracy rates and response times were recorded. We found stronger GSI effects among DHH participants than hearing participants. The semantic congruency effect was significantly larger in DHH participants than in hearing participants, and results of our experiments indicated a significantly larger gender congruency effect in DHH participants as compared to hearing participants. Results of this study shed light on GSI among DHH individuals and suggest future avenues for research examining the impact of gesture on language processing and communication in this population.

Literaturwettbewerbe - ein sinnvoller Beitrag für den fremdsprachlichen Literaturunterricht? Überlegungen zu den französischen Wettbewerben Prix des lycéens und Francomics

Although student competitions play an important role in school life, they are hardly discussed in the field of foreign language didactics (referring to the German context). This article presents the two largest competitions for French language teaching, Prix des lycéens and Francomics, and explores their potential for engaging with literary texts in a school context. What seems particularly successful about the competitions is that they take students seriously as readers and challenge them to engage creatively with the works they read. This is especially meaningful since French language teaching in schools has been facing many challenges. The competitions seek to redress such difficulties by providing a selection of current French books for adolescent readers, by offering additional teaching material and other services, and ultimately enriching and supplementing French lessons.

“I feel I am like Matilda”: a study on Taiwanese adolescent readers’ transmediational practices from reading Roald Dahl’s Matilda

Suhor (Journal of Curriculum Studies 16, 247-257, 1984) defines transmediation as the “translation of content from one sign system to another” (p. 250). Research has shown that encouraging learners to transmediate meanings across modes provides them with opportunities to represent meanings in multiple ways. In fact, Fueyo (Counterpoints 176, 21-34, 2002) stated that thinking and expressing oneself through a range of sign systems is a basic educational right in a democratic society. The current study continues the research on transmediation by investigating how a class of Taiwanese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) adolescent students translated the textual content of Roald Dahl’s (1988) classic novel Matilda into non-textual modes (e.g., drawings and drama skits). The participants engaged in a two-stage transmediational process by first drawing an individual illustration to accompany a passage taken from the novel and then working in groups to represent their favorite chapters in a multimodal manner. Results indicated various degrees of transferring and transforming the original textual content. It was also found that allowing students to choose the content to focus on for their final transmediational projects did not motivate students to transform their knowledge of the novel to a greater degree, as most of them were more concerned with accurately presenting the textual content. This article concludes with teaching suggestions and research directions to encourage practitioners and researchers to look further into the uses of transmediational practices in literacy instruction and research.

A Study on Turkish Books in Wattpad Platform using Tags and Popularity Rankings

Wattpad platform has reached a significant number of users in Turkey as well as in the world. Therefore, books written in Turkish on Wattpad are essential reference sources for researchers to determine the transformation and development of Turkish and popular literature in the digital environment. The tags are keywords assigned by the author and contain valuable information about the general characteristics of a book. The browse categories when sorted by hot listing option, give a popularity ranking of a category at the current time. Tags enable the readers to discover the book more easily and provides the book to be ranked on top of the popularity rankings. In this study, from the tags that are obtained from the top 10 books of popularity rankings of a 13-year-old user profile, it is aimed to analyze the subjects of interest of adolescent readers, their choices and the quality of the Turkish books that appeal to them. The tags are classified and it was determined that the most used tags among the classified groups were related to the genre of the story, the subject of the story, and the K-pop culture, respectively. This shows the effect of K-pop culture in Turkish books on Wattpad. It is also seen that words related to kinship and affinity names, professions and occupational names, media and social media communication tools, mature themes, venues, supernatural, and mythological elements, Watty Awards, gender and age, religions, personal, physical and age characteristics of protagonists, and reign are used as tags.

Effects of reading medium on the processing, comprehension, and calibration of adolescent readers

This study investigated the effects of reading texts on paper versus on screen on reading time, text comprehension, and calibration of performance, while controlling for relevant individual difference variables. In a within-subjects design, eighth graders (N = 150) read two informational texts, one printed on a sheet of paper and one on a tablet. Reading time was registered. Text comprehension was assessed with open-ended questions at three levels: main idea, key points, and other relevant information. Calibration of performance was assessed as calibration bias by subtracting participants’ actual comprehension performance from their judgment of comprehension performance. Results of linear mixed models showed that reading medium did not affect reading time, but an interaction effect of medium with gender on reading time emerged. Boys were faster when reading on screen than on paper. Reading medium affected comprehension at the level of the main idea, favoring reading on paper. Moreover, reading medium affected calibration of performance, with larger calibration bias when reading on screen. Further, an interaction of medium with gender on calibration bias showed that boys were less calibrated when reading on screen than when reading on paper. Finally, mediation analyses showed that calibration bias mediated the effects of reading medium on text comprehension at the levels of main idea and key points.

The gold standard for whom? Schools' experiences participating in a randomised controlled trial

BackgroundRandomised controlled trials (RCTs) have long been considered the gold standard in education research. Federal funds are allocated to evaluations that meet What Works Clearinghouse standards; RCT designs are required in order to meet these standards without reservations. Schools seek out interventions that are research based, in other words, interventions that have demonstrated effects in RCTs, creating a cycle that incentivises RCT research. However, RCTs pose tremendous obstacles for school‐based participants.MethodsThis paper presents a descriptive case study of an RCT of an adolescent reading intervention implemented in four districts over three years, drawing on interviews and document analysis to illustrate the challenges that participation in an RCT poses for schools.ResultsIn two participating districts, the random assignment requirement caused major difficulties with recruitment and retention. Of the 15 schools that began implementation in fall of year 1, 11 left the study by fall of year 2. Of those 11, eight explicitly stated that the random assignment requirement was the reason they withdrew. Stakeholders expressed that they felt it was unethical to withhold the intervention from some students.ConclusionsThis rate of attrition casts doubt on the external validity of the programme evaluation, as these schools are likely to systematically differ from schools that met the requirements of random assignment. Suggestions are offered for alternative methods that may be used to evaluate promising interventions, in ways that are better aligned with real‐world educational contexts.HighlightsWhat is already known about this topic RCTs are considered the gold standard in education research, and research funding is distributed accordingly. Promising interventions often fail to replicate under effectiveness conditions. What this paper adds This paper examines the challenges of participation in an RCT for schools. Student‐level random assignment presents a barrier to school participation in RCTs. High attrition rates cast doubt on the external validity of the findings. Implications for theory, policy and practice When designing intervention research beyond the efficacy stage, feasibility for practitioners and external validity should be given greater weight. Alternative methods for evaluating promising interventions are proposed, including switching replications designs, RCTs comparing interventions with no business as usual control group, regression discontinuity, matched non‐random comparison groups, and improvement science approaches.

The impact of technology use on adolescents' leisure reading preferences

AbstractThere is worldwide concern about the decline in children and adolescent enjoyment of reading as documented by international and national surveys, with smartphones and other technologies often blamed for the decline. Yet, with recent rapid improvements in technologies for reading, the accelerated adoption of devices for learning during the pandemic and increased access to e‐books through the public library system in Singapore, the relationship between adolescent technology use and reading may be more complex than is typically painted in popular press. This mixed‐methods study seeks to make current an understanding of adolescent reading in relation to technology by exploring adolescents' preferred reading devices, their use of technology for reading and their use of public e‐resources for reading. In this study, adolescents preferred using their smartphones over print forms for reading and preferred to read social media online. E‐books accessed freely through the public library were under‐utilised, and adolescents reported lack of knowledge or experience about how to look for reading resources online. Findings suggest an intentional and nuanced approach is needed to create an ecosystem of opportunities for adolescents to have meaningful reading experiences in print and digitally.

Concurrent and longitudinal contributions of phonological awareness to early adolescent Chinese reading acquisition

This study investigated universal and language-specific phonological awareness in reading development among Chinese early adolescent students. Seventy-six children participated in this study and completed a series of reading tasks at two data collection points across Grades 5 and 6. In Grade 5, universal phonological awareness (syllable, onset, rhyme, and phoneme awareness), language-specific phonological awareness (tone awareness) as well as character recognition and production measurements were administered to the participants. Lexical inferencing ability was measured in Grade 6. Character recognition and lexical inference were coded as the outcome variables. Subsequent multiple regression analyses showed that Time 1 (Grade 5) language-universal onset and phoneme awareness predicted character recognition and production at Time 1. More strikingly, the study demonstrated that language-specific tone awareness exerted a longitudinal effect on later lexical inferencing ability after controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence. Results underscored both the universality and language specificity of phonological awareness and provided empirical evidence to substantiate the facilitative role of early language-specific psycholinguistic grain size in later reading performance.

The Same yet Different: Oral and Silent Reading in Children and Adolescents with Dyslexia

Dyslexia is characterized by poor word reading. In research, education, and diagnosis, oral reading is commonly assessed, and outcomes are generalized to silent reading, although similarities and differences between oral and silent reading are poorly understood. We therefore compared oral word reading, oral text reading and silent text reading. Children (n = 40; aged 8–11) and adolescents (n = 54; aged 14–18) with dyslexia, and typical readers (n = 18, and n = 24 respectively), read a word-list and an age-appropriate text aloud, and silently read a text including instructions for simple tasks. Whereas oral and silent reading fluency were comparable for children, silent reading was more fluent than oral reading for adolescents. Importantly, the silent reading deficit of children and adolescents with dyslexia was as large as in oral reading or larger, highlighting the need for a focus on both reading modes in research, diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia.

Distinctive neural correlates of phonological and reading impairment in fetal alcohol-exposed adolescents with and without facial dysmorphology

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has been linked to atypical brain and cognitive development, including poor academic performance in reading. This study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging to characterize functional and structural mechanisms mediating reading deficits in 26 adolescents with PAE-related facial dysmorphology (fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)/partial FAS (PFAS)), 29 heavily-exposed (HE) non-syndromal adolescents, in comparison with 19 typically developing controls. The FAS/PFAS and HE groups were balanced in terms of levels of PAE and reading (dis)ability. While neural alterations in the posterior association cortices were evident in both PAE groups, distinctive neural correlates of reading (dis)abilities were observed between adolescents with and without facial dysmorphology. Specifically, compared to the HE and control groups, the syndromal adolescents showed greater activation in the right precentral gyrus during phonological processing and rightward lateralization in an important reading-related tract (inferior longitudinal fasciculus, ILF), suggesting an atypical reliance on the right hemisphere. By contrast, in the HE, better reading skills were positively correlated with neural activation in the left angular gyrus and white matter organization of the left ILF, although the brain function-behavior relation was weaker than among the controls, suggesting less efficient function of the typical reading network. Our findings provide converging evidence at both the neural functional and structural levels for distinctive brain mechanisms underlying atypical reading and phonological processing in PAE adolescents with and without facial dysmorphology.

청소년의 읽기, 수학 및 과학 성취에 영향을 미치는 주요 예측변수 탐색1)

The purpose of this study was to explore the key predictors that explain the reading, mathematics, and science achievement of Korean adolescents. To do this, the mixed-effect random forest (MERF) (Hajjem, Bellavance, & Larocque, 2012) considering multilevel data structure and multilevel modeling were applied to PISA 2018 data. The main results are as follows. First, MERF approach revealed that reading strategies, the perception of competence in reading, enjoyment of reading, index of PISA tests, and students

Turning Away from Anti‐Blackness: A Critical Review of Adolescent Reading Motivation Research

AbstractResponding to calls for centering Black lives in our collective consciousness, this review uses Critical Race Theory to analyze researchers’ inclusion of race in conceptualizing and operationalizing adolescent reading motivation. Two questions guide this review: (1) How do researchers include race in theories of adolescent reading motivation? and (2) What assumptions do researchers make about race in studying adolescent reading motivation? What conclusions do they draw based on these assumptions? Through a systematic search, articles addressing adolescent reading motivation’s conceptual/theoretical foundations, measurement, and study as it relates to reading behaviors and outcomes were identified and analyzed using deductive thematic analysis. Findings emerged across three categories: (1) color‐evasiveness, demonstrating reading motivation was not conceptualized with Black readers in mind, (2) modus operandi, showing business‐as‐usual approaches to studying reading motivation, and (3) difference and deficit, illustrating how researchers have positioned Black readers in comparison to their white counterparts. Recommendations are made for how adolescent reading motivation can be reimagined to center Black readers’ histories, experiences, and brilliance.

Story Comprehension Monitoring Across Visual, Listening, and Written Modalities in Children with and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Visual, as compared to verbal, tasks are often assumed to be easier for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but is this true for story comprehension? This study evaluated story comprehension monitoring across visual, listening, and written modalities and assessed predictors in two closely matched groups (age, socioeconomic status, language, nonverbal cognition, and word reading) of children and adolescents (8-14years) with ASD (n = 20) and typical development (typically developing [TD]; n = 20). The results of mixed-effects models indicated that story comprehension monitoring was low overall, and performance was comparable across visual, listening, and written modalities for participants with ASD. Age, vocabulary, nonverbal working memory, response and distractor inhibition, and social communication significantly predicted comprehension monitoring.

Чтение в жизни детей младшего школьного возраста 9–11 лет

A large number of changes in the reading of children and adolescents impedes the passing on of literary culture from generation to generation, which makes the topic of family reading increasingly important. Today, the reading experience of a child and his future largely depend on reading in the family and the activity of parents who are the main mentors and the first teachers introducing children to reading. The article discusses the practice of family reading. The tradition of family reading dates back to the 18th century—it is also the same time when the first specialized children’s literature appeared. The structure of family reading includes the reading of both poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, the exchange of opinions about what has been read, and the formation and transmission of literary tradition and family (home) library. Quite common are families where serious attention is paid to the reading process: parents show interest in reading, reading practices are instilled from early childhood, new books are regularly bought, and what is read becomes the subject of discussion with children. In such families, children read a lot and know where to find information about books. However, there are also families where adults are not interested in reading and do not pass on the literary tradition to their children. In such families, children are more likely to surf the internet, do not visit libraries and do not like to read. A drawing technique and a survey of younger schoolchildren from Moscow and Krasnodar were used to study the opinions of children. The relevance of this article is primarily due to the fact that it shows a direct opinion of children on how they imagine the reading process. With the help of drawings, children were able to express their feelings and position regarding the research question posed.

Reading of today Russian adolescents in the context of digital reality

Reading of literature is important type of activity contributed to the formation of identity and worldview. Reading for teenagers has become an optional activity, perceived as the leisure, preference is given to watching TV, computer games, social networks and etс. These changes are principally related to the processes taking place in modern society, including the increasing representation of digital technologies in the life of adolescents. Psychological study showed that in the structure of reading motivation of today adolescents can be distinguished: benefit motive, entertainment motive, escapism motive, personal motive, compulsion motive, social motive. At the same time, more than a third of adolescents do not have any formed reading motivation, and prevail motives for reading are external motives: benefit motives, entertainment and compulsion motives. The age dynamic and gender differences can be traced. Sociological surveys show that the reading circle of adolescents consists of printed and electronic books and periodicals. The proportions change towards the preference for electronic reading. Despite the fact that the Internet has increased the intensity of teenagers reading, they read not only e-books, but also news, encyclopedias, humorous sites, publications about celebrities and music portals. Thus, digitalization increases the volume of reading, but decreases its quality.

Intersectional Feminism and Social Justice in Teen Vogue

In this article, we argue that Teen Vogue has evolved to encompass aspects of intersectional, feminist activism that is particularly evident in the 2017 “Voices” section of the magazine. This evolution challenges previous research that has found that, historically, teen magazines focus heavily on heteronormativity, ideals of beauty, and consumerism. Our analysis of the content of this section of Teen Vogue in 2017 demonstrates that teen magazines can be reimagined as legitimate sources of intersectional activist feminist information for readers. Despite these positive changes, however, Teen Vogue continues to advertise clothing brands that many adolescent girl readers are likely unable to afford, thereby reinforcing superficial postfeminist notions of empowerment.