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International audience; Background: Drawing on theories of purposeful reading, this study explored task conditions that support fifth graders' selective reading of documents in order to answer questions. More specifically, we investigated whether promoting students' elaboration of their task model increases task performance. Methods: Participants had to answer series of questions by searching documents for the relevant information. Half the participants received a task model prompt, and half received a control prompt. Participants' eye movements were recorded during text search, in order to investigate more precisely the effect of an enhanced task model. Results: Participants provided more correct answers in the task model condition than in the control condition, but there was no difference in response time. Unexpectedly, eye movement analysis did not reveal any differences between conditions concerning the number of visits and visit time to relevant and irrelevant areas of the document.

International audience; The present study investigates the effectiveness of question paraphrases in supporting students' understanding of a specific task. Secondary school students (i.e., eighth grade) read two texts and answered several questions while texts were available. A paraphrase including core information about each question was included before students provided their answer. Individual differences in reading comprehension explained the beneficial effect of paraphrases. Concretely, the presentation of paraphrases improved the performance of less-skilled but not skilled comprehenders. These findings are discussed in terms of the processes involved in task model formation and individual differences underlying these processes.