This article provides a commentary within the special issue, Integration: The Keystone of Comprehension. According to most contemporary frameworks, a driving force in comprehension is the reader's ability to generate the links among the words and sentences (ideas) in the texts and between the ideas in the text and what the readers already know. As…

This article provides a commentary within the special issue, Integration: The Keystone of Comprehension. According to most contemporary frameworks, a driving force in comprehension is the reader's ability to generate the links among the words and sentences (ideas) in the texts and between the ideas in the text and what the readers already know. As…

Highlights ways in which standard information processing models of language, and specifically of reading, are deficient. Deficiencies are considered under four headings: (1) theoretical rigour, (2) the interaction of different levels of information during reading; (3) the parallel nature of much of human information processing, and (4) reading…

Outlines concerns regarding needed adjustments in the teaching of reading to cope with a changing, complex world. (JB)

The last of eight related documents, this booklet is part of a series of papers presented at the 1978 National Right to Read Conference examining issues and problems in literacy. In examining the impact of the back to basics movement on literacy, the booklet cites evidence that the movement suffers from a lack of consensus on the meaning of…

Discusses the schema theory which holds that any text does not carry meaning by itself; rather, a text only provides directions for readers as to how they should retrieve or construct meaning from their own previously acquired knowledge. Suggests applications of the theory to English as a second language reading pedagogy. (SED)

Suggesting that the process of reading, however complex, is knowable, and that the scientific study of reading is both necessary and possible, this book brings together what has been learned through the scientific study of reading by carefully observing readers in the act of reading. The book looks at reading in the real world, at how readers and…

Some researchers believe that phonics is the more natural way to teach reading because, instead of requiring the learner to memorize whole words, phonics shows the learner the process by which alphabetic writing is converted into speech. The human baby babbles more than enough phonemes for any language. Before there was an alphabet, humans drew…

Points out that children must master a great deal of information about form classes, written conventions, and word referent relationships in order to understand what teachers mean when they use the term "word." (FL)

A paper dealing with the comprehension of metaphor and a second paper addressing the ramifications of the first paper's ideas for teaching practices are contained in this report. The opening section of the first paper explains why language theorists and scholars in a number of disciplines are interested in metaphor. Its next section deals with…

A number of classroom techniques are presented that illustrate the diversity of competencies necessary to reading in a second language, even more complex in their many combinations. It is proposed that evaluation of reading competence is difficult, if not impossible, by anyone but the student. (MSE)

While reading and writing are both language processes and a natural relationship between the two could be assumed, they have generally been studied and taught separately--one as a production process and the other as a reception process. There has recently been increased interest in the relationship in the education community. The source of this…

Notes the problem in reading instruction of teaching children both one-to-one representational meaning of words and world-meaning of words, a distinction that can alter their perception of truth as found in written works. (JC)

There is an explosion of new research describing writing stages and how young children learn about reading by learning to write first. Teachers can develop environments in which students can freely explore writing in no-fail situations. By being guided by childrens' spontaneous learning efforts many inapropriate teaching techniques can be avoided.…

As individuals read, they construct meaning at various levels, including literal, interpretive, and critical. One part of this comprehension act is creative reading, which may be promoted by self-questioning so that students become personally involved in the material they read. To guide students' self-questioning strategies, teachers can both pose…