Predictors of language production skills were evaluated in 48 children and adolescents with Down syndrome and compared to 48 children matched for nonverbal mental age and mother's years of education. Comparison of two models found the model that incorporated comprehension performance (as well group membership, chronological age, cognition,…

To investigate the causes of variation in cloze-comprehension test correlations, a reanalysis was conducted of the influential J.R. Bormuth study (1962), which reported correlations between nine cloze and nine comprehension tests administered to 50 subjects in grades 4, 5, and 6. Two separate renalayses were completed in the present study, the…

To investigate the influence of instructional behaviors and adult expectations on children's task performance, 48 boys either 5 to 6 or 8 to 9 years of age individually viewed instructional videotapes and participated in a delay of gratification task. In the first phase of the study, videotapes were produced in which instructors were told to…

Studies the effect of intellectual development, degree of field independence, mental capacity, amount of prior genetics knowledge and amount of fluid intelligence on reading comprehension and/or genetics achievement of students enrolled in a nonmajor biology course. Concludes that developmental level was the most consistent predictor of…

Severity of hearing loss predicted poor reading comprehension scores for children with reading impairments in Grade 3 (N=67) and Grade 6 (N=36) in a study done in five areas of Quebec (Canada). Good scores of a few Grade 6 students with severe hearing loss indicated that these students can keep up if wide gaps do not exist at the outset of…

This study examined characteristics of multiple-choice reading comprehension tasks suspected of influencing their difficulty, through administration of the California Achievement Tests to 158 deaf college students. Problem components evaluated included manifest content, psychologically salient features, and processing demands. Variation in item…

Describes study of 42 first and second graders which was conducted to determine whether older siblings could enhance their comprehension of television programs. The hypotheses tested are discussed, research methodology using analysis of variance is explained, videotapes of sibling interaction are analyzed, and future research needs are suggested.…

This study of the effectiveness of the Project Success Summer Program found that the eight-week program improved dyslexic adults' (n=63) reading and spelling scores in five areas. Results indicated that training in phonological skills improved decoding skills and that passage reading rates and individual word reading rates best predicted…

This study was conducted to determine the accuracy of learners' comprehension monitoring during computer-based instruction and to assess the relationship between enroute monitoring and different levels of learning. Participants were 50 university undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory educational psychology class. All students received…

A study sought to determine if there were significant relationships among preservice teachers' learning style, attitude toward reading, composite score on the American College Test (ACT), declared major, high school grade point average, vocabulary score, and reading comprehension score in predicting performance in a basic skills course in reading…

A study examined the relationship of multiple measures of reading and writing at the second and fifth grade levels. Multiple reading tests (measuring vocabulary, word recognition, sentence comprehension, and passage comprehension) and writing tests (evaluating vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity, and providing qualitative and…

Describes study of 435 Israeli elementary school students to assess effects of open education on reading comprehension assignments. Literature on open education is reviewed, the hypotheses tested are described, results are analyzed comparing the effects of open education with the effects of traditional classroom instruction, and 46 references are…

Students' macroprocessing of instruction was studied in a learning situation which used adjunct questions. The subjects were offered various macroprocessing options while reading a passage on data processing and computer programming. Each sentence appeared on a computer CRT screen one at a time. The options included: (1) review any sentence or…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 17 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effects of metacognitive comprehension monitoring strategies on fourth grade students' reading comprehension and recall performance; (2) elementary school…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 28 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) prekindergarten screening and first grade reading achievement; (2) the influence of the instructional environment on children's acquisition of reading; (3)…