LIBRI DI GABRIELLA AGRUSTI

Reading a mathematical problem can be often challenging for students. To be successful, they need to understand the words, transposing their meaning on an abstract level, to identify the relations stated in the problem and the task requested. Even if the meaning of the words is known, the case can be given that the student cannot grab the global meaning, nor inferring useful implications to solve the problem. This article offers an overview on reading comprehension issues linked to mathematical texts, and then proposes a set of common mistakes made by young readers, emerged in a first exploratory field experience carried out with grade 7 students. Given that learning activities were carried out on the Pythagorean Theorem, specific attention was devoted to the transposition of words into geometrical figures.

It is widely recognized that vocabulary is closely tied to reading comprehension, and correlations between these two constructs, even if differently defined across studies, vary between .6 and .8. But correlation is not a causal relationship, and does not provide enough basis for a comprehensive conceptual explanation. Reversing the problem, it is still highly controversial whether specific interventions on vocabulary instruction can massively influence reading comprehension, and this particularly in adult learners, indicating that a lot remains to be investigated in the field of vocabulary knowledge transfer to other components of language proficiency. Recent studies showed that the weak link for understanding this apparent gap lies probably in the way vocabulary is assessed. This article shows the results of a two-year research project aimed at assessing future teachers’ vocabulary related to school everyday life issues, focussing both on language for specific purposes and on general language. In particular, different typologies of reading comprehension tests, of vocabulary tests (receptive and productive), on paper and pencil and on computer-based administrations, were adopted and compared.

Gabriella Agrusti It is widely recognized that prior knowledge plays a fundamental role in reading comprehension and in meaning construction. Generally, readers who are able to identify the typical structure of a text in a genre or to locate its content within the appropriate domain are said to better recall the ideas conveyed by the text. The text itself is a textus, a complex texture that includes rhetorical patterns on different directories (spatial, temporal, figurative), a network structure that offers several ways of integrating information based on relationships among its components. Poor readers are unlikely to make inferences to link these pieces of information into a coherent representation. Would the introduction of an image comprehension strategy improve students’ reading comprehension of verbal texts? In this article the results of a research project carried out in Italy on adult readers, with particular reference to inferential processes in narrative anachronies, will be presented.

Distance learning in Italy is currently widespread both in terms of course numbers and participants. From the end of the 1980s the Laboratorio di Pedagogia sperimentale (Roma Tre University) offered ongoing distance 131 learning courses and on line postgraduate courses for teachers and individuals engaged in cultural activities. This article considers this twenty-year experience setting out courses features, their evolution over the years, the different types of student and the introduction of new technologies on interactive teaching. It will also aim at demonstrating the most recent lines of research on adaptive learning. Distance education, teacher training, technologies in education, Italy, adaptive learning.