A hot topic in educational sciences is whether and how reading medium (paper vs. screen) affects reading comprehension. Especially in the media – but also in schools – their appears to be a preference for texts presented on paper: Paper texts are thought to induce a more intensive reading strategy,…

How can we help children and adults to acquire better reading comprehension? Paul van den Broek and his colleagues at the Brain and Education Lab are searching for an answer to this question by investigating reading and the related brain activity.

Below are resources which provide a short primer on the subject of active learning.

The Platform for Postcolonial Readings brings together researchers, especially junior researchers, in Belgium and the Netherlands interested in issues of globalization, inter/transculturality, diversity and inclusivity, intersectionality, and postcoloniality. We are an open group (do join us!) and meet…

Scientific research is the main focus of our program. We expect new students to understand what it is and how it works.

Using object assemblages to reconstruct activities, modes of deposition and abandonment at the Late Bronze Age dunnu of Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria.

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A dental anthropological approach to foodways, health and disease, and crafting in the pre-Columbian Caribbean.

Since 2006, HJD has made an important contribution to shaping diplomatic studies as an international academic field. Our new HJD Diplomacy Reading List presents a diverse collection of analyses categorized into forty-five topics published in HJD over the years. We hope these lists prove a valuable resource…

Sources for those who want to familiarise themselves with the region.

Please find below links to articles / events that might be of interest.

Each month we will be spotlighting material we have been reading, or that have been recommended to us that relate to AI and a particular theme.

What is the effect of practicing with electronic books on reading skills for grade 1 students?

This study tests whether behavioural problems at a young age are related to early reading and mathematics development.

This volume contributes to the scholarly debate regarding the reception of Cicero and focuses on one particular moment in Cicero’s life: the period from Caesar's death (March 44 BCE) up to Cicero’s own death (December 43 BCE).

Our previous meta-analysis (Swart et al., 2019) had shown that feedback targeting text comprehension given when students perform a reading task positively influences learning from text. So far, differences in the effects of feedback were explained by design features, such as the timing and richness…

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The month of May saw LUGO host its Spring Event, which consisted of a poetry reading and clotheswap! The event took place on May 10th at Rapenburg 100, in Leiden, from 17.30 to 20.30, and included free vegan snacks provided for by the Green Kitchen.

The Academic Language Centre has developed 19 video clips on Academic Skills. The videos are divided into three categories. Watch them below for a good start to your studies!

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These four volumes offer students and researchers a rich collection of published works on the history of slavery works by some of the most preeminent scholars in the field.

The global population speaks approximately 7,000 different languages and approximately half of the world’s population is bilingual. The unique orthographic characteristics of different languages can help us to gain insight into the seemingly simple process of transforming written to spoken words (i.e.,…

Objects, Appropriation and Cultural Change

Nietzsche's most famous and infamous book Thus Spoke Zarathustra is perhaps the most read, but probably also the least understood, book in Nietzsche's oeuvre. Nietzsche considered it his highlight. He called it a symphony, a holy book, a fifth gospel and even the greatest gift ever given to humanity.…

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What is the cost of visual complexity? This dissertation sets out to determine the effect of the complexity of word formation on the legibility of Arabic and the role that vocalization plays in reading.

This study examined the effects of a classroom-focused intervention on different domains of early literacy. The intervention consisted of shared e-book reading combined with a print referencing technique done via a SMART board. The specific goal of the study was to examine whether children could be…

Young people are more likely to find long texts unappealing to read, particularly with all the digital distractions. To improve young people’s reading skills, Elise Swart and Hannah De Mulder are starting an innovative study to make reading fun again.

Nature, nurture and neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation in childhood

In this thesis I highlight the applications of Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) sequencing. This technique is a relatively new approach in the sequencing field, where nanopores are embedded in a membrane, DNA molecules are pulled through nanopores and an electrical current serving as the sequencing…

Reading emotions from others’ faces strengthens social relationships. But how is that for children with hearing loss? Can they learn to read faces just as easily as hearing children? The study by Yung-Ting Tsou and colleagues shows that daily

This month, the volume Reading Russian Literature, 1980-2024, edited by Otto Boele and Dorine Schellens, was published at Palgrave Macmillan.

Read-Urban was a first project to investigate whether policy recommendations can be made with the aid of linked data collections and data science and to gain experience with the success factors for such a process.

This research aims to address the connection between Sufism and modern Arabic Literature (specifically, Palestinian literature).