Identifies and briefly discusses nine areas of reading research. (AEA)

Examines the background of schema theory and discusses the contention that content schemata is more important to the reader than textual schemata. Concludes that the more useful schemata is determined by the context rather than one schemata type always being more important than the other. (FL)

Noting that the growth of linguistics as a discipline has been accompanied by an awareness of the relevance of linguistic research to the study and teaching of reading, this paper examines four points at which linguists and reading researchers have met. The four areas reviewed are: (1) linguistic methods in teaching reading, (2) sociolinguistics…

Readers cannot profitably be studied without some assessment of the texts they read. Analyses of texts, however, are of doubtful value unless tested against readers' behavior. Despite the relative neglect of text in research on reading, numerous approaches to the analysis of text have been proposed. The developments within linguistics and the…

Paragraphs which contain a topic sentence and other highly related supportive information lead to better comprehension and recall than paragraphs constructed in a less organized fashion. (MKM)

This paper advocates the view of readability as an interaction between text structure and the cognitive processes and structures possessed by a reader. A simulation model of prose comprehension that yields predictions of both propositional recall and text readability based on the frequencies of different processing events is discussed. The paper…

Several theories of story structure are reviewed in this paper, including those of D. Rumelhart, R. Schank, and T. van Dijk. Examples are given of Rumelhart's story grammar consisting of elements such as setting, episodes, events, and reactions that must be present to form a coherent structure. Schank's contribution to story structure theory is…

A model has been developed for studying the relation between text structure and reading comprehension, emphasizing the reader's use of world knowledge and text-structural knowledge to evaluate and interpret meaning from text. When the highlights of the model are considered from the perspective of various expository texts used in research on…

Reviews research which indicates that children should be taught to consider their purpose for reading and should receive feedback on whether they have achieved their purpose. (MKM)

Outlines three basic views of how readers infer causal connections and how they generate causal inferences. Evaluates these three hypotheses with reference to current research in the field. (HB)

This paper suggests that teachers concentrate on the ideational and structural properties of text rather than on information acquired from readability formulas when selecting and using texts. Emphasis is given to the importance of context in the analysis of text, and a framework is suggested for examining the text considering the functions texts…

Models of reading have been proposed to guide researchers and educators in their theoretical research and instructional planning. The models specify important properties of the material to be read and processes the learner uses while reading. Two separate models of reading by K.S. Goodman and D. Rumelhart are similar in that they describe reading…

Presents a framework for expressing how choices are made in systemic grammars. Framework represents grammar as combination of systemic syntactic description and explicit choice processes called "choice experts." (DF)

Presents an analysis of prose narratives that allows content to be identified as central and provides a priori rationale for why the content is central. Investigates which content is supportive of, or distracting to, the central content. (FL)

Discusses previous articles in this journal and calls for a new theory of story grammar. (FL)