Partner reading with paragraph shrinking has been shown to be an effective classwide reading intervention in elementary school, but has yet to be studied with eighth-grade students or with content area reading such as science and social studies. The current study examined the effects of implementing the classwide intervention for 3 wk with 86…

Research reveals that although the effect of diacritics--the symbols that tell the reader how to pronounce a letter--on reading and reading comprehension was examined in a series of studies, the influence of diacritics on listening comprehension, especially in the Arabic orthography, was not examined. Therefore, this study attempted to examine…

This study replicated, with modifications, previous research of dyad reading using texts at various levels of difficulty (Morgan, 1997). The current project measured the effects of using above-grade-level texts on reading achievement and sought to determine the influences of dyad reading on both lead and assisted readers. Results indicate that…

This experimental study explored the impact of representation + glossary label visuals on science outcomes in a sample of 174 Grade 7 English learners (ELs). Analysis of covariance results indicated that, regardless of English proficiency, ELs in both treatment and control conditions performed similarly on reading comprehension (p = 0.26) and…

In 2 experiments the authors investigated whether assigning a perspective to middle school students prior to reading a long informational text would improve their reading comprehension. Pretest-posttest control group designs were employed in both experiments, in Experiment 1 (n = 146 fifth- and sixth-grade students) and in Experiment 2 (n = 83…

Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) was implemented for supplementary reading classes in a Korean elementary school. The treatment group children were exposed to PALS during 20 min sessions, 4 times a week, for 8 weeks. The impacts of PALS were investigated in 3 aspects using a mixed-methods approach: improvement in reading attitudes, reading…

This study describes the synthesis of the cloze technique with story-mapping techniques resulting in the Cloze Story Map (CSM) and tests the immediate and long-term usefulness of CSM with both expository and narrative texts. Results are discussed. (Author/MT)

Text lookback training in reading instruction was studied using high school and middle school students. Students were assigned to either a training or control group, with training group students receiving instruction on the use of text lookbacks to answer questions. Results are discussed. (Author/DF)

This study assessed the use of oral recitation lessons (ORL) to develop second graders' oral reading fluency and the effects of fluency training on reading comprehension. ORL proved effective in developing oral reading fluency. Fluency and reading comprehension of ORL students was superior to that of students receiving traditional reading…

Systematic main idea instruction was delivered to minority high school students while a control group received instruction in vocabulary development. Those students who received main idea instruction performed better at identifying explict and main ideas in paragraphs and at restating and summarizing. General comprehension performance was not…

Intermediate students scored better on reading comprehension tests when questions on content were interspersed in the text. (JD)

The effects of retelling (free recall) upon comprehension and recall of text information for fourth-grade students were investigated. After training sessions, students silently read a test passage and either retold or illustrated the important parts of the passage. Significant differences were found on all measures of reading comprehension in…

Two successful teaching strategies for improving students' reading comprehension, vocabulary, and speed of reading comprehension are the MRM method (identifying sentence kernels) and the LOGANAR method (logically analyzing cognitive relationships). (CJ)

Sixty second grade students participated in an investigation of the usefulness of an instructional technique, "story impressions," for improving readers' processing of unfamiliar narratives. Both above- and below-average readers in the story impressions group answered more postreading test questions correctly than did students who only read the…

Describes process variables associated with reading maze tasks in macrostructure theory. Researchers provided a multiple-choice extension of cloze to high school readers, eliciting word, sentence, and paragraph replacement. Different maze accuracy patterns emerged for readers of differing proficiency, suggesting mazes are valuable in diagnosing…