| This dissertation explores reading, specifically describing the roles of reader, text, and culture in reading events. The study is grounded in the cultural theory of reading, framing reading as a transaction in which reader, text, and culture all act agentively. The study conflates theories of metacognitive reading, narrative conventions, children's literature, multimodality, and the role of cultural knowledge in reading in order to thoroughly describe each agent's roles. Data was collected through a think-aloud protocol in which a group of elementary school students individually read and shared their thinking about children's fictional picturebooks. The readers' statements while reading were then analyzed quantitatively in terms of the agentive moves made by reader, text, and culture. Data analysis of the agency of readers showed that readers most frequently performed five commonly described reading behaviors: summary, inference, prediction, synthesis, and making connections. The behaviors are further described in terms of their content and patterns of their individual use as well as their use in combination with other behaviors. Data analysis of the role of text demonstrated that that both written text and illustration acted frequently, though written text dominated the transactions. The study presents a catalog of textual conventions that pertain specifically to children's fictional picturebooks. The study also describes how texts gradually release responsibility to readers. Data analysis of the role of culture demonstrated that genre-related knowledge was the type of extratextual knowledge that most frequently acted in the reading event. Knowledge of specific cultures portrayed in the text had little effect on interpretations. These findings are of potential significance for reading teachers and book publishers. The author suggests questions for future investigation which might clarify or confirm these findings. |
