............................................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................. vii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 RATIONALE AND OVERVIEW ..................................................................................... 1 Rationale .......................................................................................................................................................... 2 Overview.......................................................................................................................................................... 6 Summary .......................................................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW: GLASSES HAVE TWO LENSES ....................................... 10 Reading Comprehension and Print-Based Text ............................................................................................. 12 The Consumer‟s Lens: How do I Understand This? ................................................................................. 12 Reading Comprehension and Narrative Text.. ................................................................ ..... 12 Strategy Instruction ................................................................................................................ 16 Cognitive strategies ................................................................................................................ 17 Metacognition ........................................................................................................................ 19 Scaffolding Learning: Putting our Understanding of Reading Comprehension to Use ......... 27 The use of learning strategies to scaffold comprehension development. ........................................ 28 Acronymous learning strategies. ..................................................................................................... 40 The Producer‟s Lens: How do I Make this Understandable?. ............................................................... ..45 Reading Comprehension and Expository Text ...................................................................... 46 Textual Readability, a First Step in Matching the Product to the Consumer ........................ 49 Other Features ........................................................................................................................ 52 Reading Comprehension and Web-Based Text ............................................................................................. 54 The Producer‟s Lens: How do I Make this Understandable? ................................................................... 55 Reading Comprehension and Web-Text ................................................................................ 56 Textual Readability ................................................................................................................ 59 Usability of Web-Text, Matching the Product to the Consumer ........................................... 65 The Consumer‟s Lens: How do I Understand This? ................................................................................. 74 Web Literacy .......................................................................................................................... 74 Cognitive Strategies, Matching the Consumer to the Product ............................................. 78 Scaffolding Learning: Putting our Understanding of Reading Comprehension to Use ........ 80 Reading With a Purpose, or Reading Purposefully? ...................................................................................... 83 Towards Evidence Based Practice ............................................................................................................ 83 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................ 89 CHAPTER 3 METHODS AND PROCEDURES .................................................................................. 91 Research Context ........................................................................................................................................... 92 Location ..................................................................................................................................... 92 Participants ................................................................................................................................. 92 Original study ........................................................................................................................ 92 Replication study .................................................................................................................. 93 Curriculum ................................................................................................................................. 94 Procedures...................................................................................................................................................... 95 The Original Study ..................................................................................................................... 95 The Replication Study ................................................................................................................ 97 Instrumentation .............................................................................................................................................. 98