College students who read material with advance organizers presented either before the passage or interspersed in the text did not recall significantly more information than did a control group presented with the text only. (MM)

Two experiments examined the relative effects of concrete and abstract advance organizers on students' memory for subsequent prose. Results of the experiments are discussed in terms of the memorability, familiarity, and visualizability of concrete and abstract verbal materials. (JD)

In studies on the effect of advance objectives on readers' comprehension of prose, reliable differences were noted in the areas of the passages students focused upon depending on the presence of objectives and the level of learning they required. No differences were observed in reading comprehension. (JD)

This study examined the use of story impressions as a prereading writing activity. Students either received story impressions, read a story, then wrote stories using clues; received story impressions and listed predictions about a story; or received no preview activity before story reading. Story impressions produced the highest level of story…

Results are reported from a study that investigated which combinations of structural support involving embedded headings and intact outlines optimize immediate and delayed recognition as well as recall learning from videotaped instruction. Subjects were 102 college students. (IAH)

Reports a study that compared the effects of two teacher-directed prereading instructional procedures (directed reading activity versus story grammar/structured overview story mapping) on elementary students' literal and inferential reading comprehension. Story mapping produced better comprehension among third graders but no differences in…

In this study, the effects of previewing on children's (N=87) comprehension of a televised story were investigated. Results indicate that previewing may be an effective mediational technique for enhancing children's comprehension and retention of plot-essential information from a televised story. (Author/IAH)

Middle school students (N=35) who read and paraphrased an advance organizer prior to study, correctly answered significantly more lower-order study questions than did students not encountering the organizer. Middle school (N=26) and college (N=30) students who read and paraphrased the advance organizer constructed significantly better answers for…

A study evaluated the effectiveness of contextual organizers for subjects (n=276) of three cognitive styles (field dependent, field independent, and field intermediate) during computer-assisted instruction. Findings were advance organizers were more effective for field-dependent subjects; postorgainzers were more effective for field-intermediate…

This study examined whether graphic organizer instruction would facilitate comprehension, recall, and information transfer, and how much explicit instruction was necessary for independent generation of graphic organizers. Fifth graders read social studies information with or without graphic organizers and explicit instruction. Explicitness and…