Explores the impact of an author supplied analogy on students' comprehension of a high school biology text passage. Finds that, on a short essay measure, there was no significant difference in comprehension between those students who read a passage including the analogy and those whose passage did not include the analogy. (RS)

Investigates the influence of four types of predictions on the story understanding of sixth graders. Asks prediction questions, prediction plus justification questions, prediction plus review questions, or no questions. Analyzes retellings to determine information percentage included from original story. Indicates that differences in what students…

Notes that three groups of fifth graders either read an original social studies text, read a revised version, or were asked questions while reading the original text. Finds no differences among the three groups in amount of information recalled and the number of questions answered correctly, but students who were asked questions tended to recall…

Compares recall and transfer performance of subjects receiving an extended instructional analogy or elaboration in a science text. Finds no differences between groups on explanative or nonexplanative recall. Finds differing amounts of far and immediate transfer for both groups in some instances. Suggests implications for the design of transfer…

Examines students' ability to judge comprehension of text material (before actually taking a test) as well as ability to judge comprehension performance on text material (after taking a test). Finds that although students' self-assessment ability was not related to their actual calibration skills, self-image presentation was related to students'…

Finds that low ability and average ability students benefit more from reading plays than reading stories. Finds that the performance of low ability readers equalled high ability readers when both participated in group oral readings of plays. (RS)

Studies second, fourth, and sixth grade students to answer four questions to determine whether comprehension of anaphora is a strong structural factor in children's personal composition as it is in reading comprehension. Concludes that students' reading and writing are correlated in the frequency and use of singular and plural pronouns. (MG)

Examines acquisition, maintenance, and transfer of a questioning strategy in second- and third-grade students using a multiple-baseline design. Indicates that knowledge of text structure increased and that students could reliably differentiate text structure. Describes the establishment of a 4-week procedure for integrating the questioning…

Describes how narrative texts can be represented as networks of causally related statements or events and presents empirical evidence that the networks predict performance on reading comprehension. Compares network theory to other theories of discourse comprehension. Suggests implications of causal representations for reading and composition…

Investigates effects of prior knowledge, explicitness, and clause order on fifth and sixth grade readers' ability to infer causal cohesive ties in expository text. Finds significant effects for prior knowledge for fifth and sixth grade students on all variables except the cohesion cloze task. (SG)