Apprehension is the immediate reaction of some students when faced with multisyllabic words. Lacking strategies for decoding longer words, these students stop reading and seek help from an adult or a more accomplished peer rather than tackle the mysterious words themselves. Explicit strategy instruction is often recommended for students who have…

We report an investigation of 9-year-olds' ability to interpret idioms in relation to their reading comprehension level. We manipulated whether the idioms were transparent or opaque, whether they were real or novel, whether they were presented in isolation or in a supportive narrative context. As predicted, children were better able to explain the…

A program is described that successfully teaches decoding to poor readers of average or above intelligence in grades 1 through 8. The teacher-directed, supplemental program guides students to become aware of language patterns and consistencies and to apply a decoding process of using known language patterns to figure out unknown words. (Author/JDD)