In this review of literature we examine empirical research of individual differences in younger readers' knowledge and use of expository text structures. The goal of this review is to explore the influence of reader and text characteristics in order to better understand the instructional needs of elementary school readers. First we review research…

The article contains a review of reading comprehension research since 1980, based on an interactive model of reading, with a focus on reading disabilities/learning disabilities. Included are studies which have investigated the influence of readers' prior knowledge of a topic, the influences of text structure and task demands, and metacognitive…

Noting that conceptions of the cognitive representations and processes involved in discourse comprehension and production recently have undergone an important shift in orientation, this paper points out the importance of the shift to the conception of the nature of texts, of text understanding, and of cognitive processes in knowledge creation and…