Journal of Literacy Research

This study examined the interrelationships among and combined effects of word reading skills and syntactic knowledge on reading prosody in fifth-grade monolingual Spanish-speaking students. We used Spanish standardized tests to assess the participants (n = 169, 79 girls) on word and pseudoword reading skills, syntactic knowledge, and reading prosody. The results revealed significant relationships among these factors and reading prosody. Word reading emerged as a pivotal predictor, whereas syntactic knowledge, although playing a smaller role compared to word reading, was linked to improvements in expression, phrasing, and the reduction of ungrammatical pauses. We also found a non-significant interaction between the independent effects of word reading and syntactic knowledge on reading prosody. The study suggests the potential benefits of integrating explicit syntactic instruction into reading curricula and intervention programs to support the development of reading prosody in Spanish.

Temporal seeing is a mode of visual perception that interrupts the spatial bias we bring to visual literacy practices. Although an image only captures one moment in time, there are multiple spatioanalytical tools we can use to consider any image. Spatial literacy, which is the practice of analyzing objects through their properties in space, tends to be the default analytical mode for making sense of imagery. For people to bring a commensurate temporal richness to their articulated visual readings, we first highlight the perspectival richness of time and temporality. We next present five precepts that can guide enriched temporal seeing: contextual histories; relational chronologies; internal rhymicity; desequenced and resequenced narrative; and critique and meaning-making. Finally, we suggest that temporal seeing holds a series of educative possibilities for expanding the interpretive frames and perceptual apparatuses of literacy researchers and practitioners.

The purpose of this study was to determine the most prevalent African American Language (AAL) phonological and grammatical features in slavery- and Civil Rights–themed children's literature. Seventy-six books were initially selected to determine if they used AAL in dialogue or in narration. Of the 76 books, only 39 included AAL. The 39 books were analyzed further to categorize the specific AAL features used. The results revealed that the reduction of the final g (e.g., thinkin’) was the most prevalent phonological feature. Moreover, phonological features were used more often in slavery-themed texts than in Civil Rights texts. Additionally, the most frequently used AAL grammatical features were negation tense markers (e.g., didn’t and neither) and subject-verb agreement (he listen). Grammatical features of AAL appeared more often in slavery-themed texts than Civil Rights themed texts. Implications for practice include suggestions for selecting, evaluating, and reading the books from this study with students. Implications for research include investigating other AAL features in slavery- and Civil Rights-themed books, authenticating the storylines of slavery- and Civil Rights–themed books, and analyzing other books with AAL that do not use these themes.