Explores the similar and different ways that reading and writing influence consciousness. Summarizes the relationship between reading and writing as meditation--a way of modifying inner speech or composing in the mind. (HTH)

Reports that reading researchers are now debating whether reading is a bottom-up or top-down process. (FL)

Contends that Jean Piaget's theories may be helpful in three areas of reading instruction: (1) when reading instruction should begin and how it should proceed, (2) the effect of the mature reader's cognitive development on comprehension, and (3) how the theories can help to refine reading theory. (FL)

Investigates effects of epistemological beliefs and topic-specific beliefs on undergraduates' (N=40) cognitive and strategic processing of a dual-positional text. Findings reveal that epistemological beliefs about the speed of learning affected the overall number of cognitive processes exhibited, whereas topic-specific beliefs interacted with the…

Offers three explanations drawn from language and literature theories about what happens when people read: (1) receiving sense, (2) finding sense, and (3) making sense. (EL)

The main experience of an ideal reader while reading a text is an "envisionment" of that text, a representation in the reader's mind of the content of the text. According to this view the envisionment grows and sometimes changes as the reader progresses through the text, and the ideal reader not only updates and supplements the…

Much of the current research in reading processes has been aided by movements in experimental psychology known as information processing psychology, cognitive psychology, and cognitive science. The information processing movement has contributed three important ideas: (1) Logogen theory of a cognitive response unit that is sensitive to the set of…

Reports a study testing a hierarchical theory postulating that the literal reading comprehension process can be divided into separate skills that are distinguishably different from each other and which are hierarchically related. (TO)

A reader's background knowledge (schemata) and purpose for reading have an overriding influence upon the reader's development of meaning. Reading comprehension also involves activating, focusing, maintaining, and refining ideas toward developing interpretations that are plausible, cohesive, and complete. Recent examinations of instructional…

Following a review of recent research in the University of Washington Department of Psychology project, Individual Differences in Cognition, analyses are reported linking performance in laboratory studies of cognition to performance on selected psychometric instruments. Intent of the study was to provide an empirical followup of Carrolls's (1974)…

Recent models of beginning reading processes are described, and the author offers the following summarization: (1) Models at present focus on cognitive aspects of reading; little attempt has been made to incorporate affective aspects into the models. (2) Several different theoretical positions within psychology representing a wide variety of…

Reprints Thorndike's classic article which appeared in The Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. VIII, No. 6, June 1917, pp. 323-32. (VJ)

Reviews the work of Yale computer scientist Roger C. Schank in the area of reading instruction and offers five reasons why his model of computer reading should not be applied to the reading processes of children. (FL)

Proposing the meeting of student and curriculum as a dialogue, this paper explores that meeting as an active participation in which students both "hear" the voice of the curriculum and "speak" to it. The paper argues that for such a dialogue to occur, each participant's language must have not only ideas to share and questions…

Drawing upon reading and text comprehension theories and the sociolinguistic studies of M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan, this paper builds theoretical links between the reading and writing processes. The major portion of the paper discusses the five language concepts that undergird both processes: (1) text processing in both reading and writing…