This article draws on Philip Barnard's model of the interactions between theory and practice, between basic and applied research, to investigate the paradox of reading as an experience both private and public. It uses internal reader experience as a starting point for exploration, evoking the concept of a readerly sense of presence as a selection…

Assuming that readers' emotional responses can enhance readers' metacognitive experiences and inform literary analysis, this study of 11th-grade poetry readers features instruction that models both cognitive and affective reading processes. The author: (1) Presents a case for more explicit attention to emotion in language arts classrooms; (2)…

Describes a condition called "reader's block" whereby the mind fails to comprehend the meaning of the text because of digressing thoughts. Suggests that "freereading," like freewriting, can help to clarify thoughts. Argues that it is not necessary to read things correctly the first time through. (PRA)

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)

Redefines reading as a meditative rather than a narrowly cognitive process. Decries instruction in reading for comprehension and assessment because it restricts opportunities to explore and "get lost" in reading. (HTH)

Describes how reader response theory can be easily adapted to classroom practice, thereby sharpening student interest in reading, increasing their capacity to reason and write, and fostering greater regard for different points of view. (HOD)

Charts the process by which, over some 10 years, one reader came to read a particular text "with full understanding." Indicates how crucial in that process were the complex, interacting influences of other, simpler literary texts, of the reader's own life experience, and (paradoxically) of "family" experience not consciously…

Reviews the research on how readers or listeners construct mental models of the situation a writer or speaker is describing. Narrative components and spatial models are discussed. (YP)

A study was conducted to test the findings of two earlier studies (Peeck l974 and Pressley l983) on the effects of occasional mismatches between verbal and pictorial content in children's retention of illustrated prose. While the Peeck study indicated a considerable impact of mismatched pictures, the Pressley study indicated that with some…

Noting that the new literary and rhetorical theories are concerned with revealing the constructive nature of productive and interpretive processes, this paper examines the cognitive processes in reading and writing which make them constructive and intentional acts, and how reader and writer "negotiate" meaning in light of context, reader…

To better understand the nature of students' approaches to literary understanding, a study compared the meaning-making approaches of traditionally judged above and below average readers. In all, 144 protocols were analyzed from 24 students (12 seventh graders and 12 eleventh graders, half in each class judged as above and half as below average…

Discusses the emerging assumptions of literature and its teaching that knowledge is made and must be remade by each person. Considers the relationships between the reader and the text, the reader and the reader, and the relationship between texts. (EL)

Employs a well-developed information-processing task to assess the nature of the representation and activitation of letters and geometrical figures and the changes that occur with reading development. (FL)

Argues that when involving students in activities that require them to explore texts creatively, teachers should also make them inquire into their own reading processes--especially since the reading of literature helps the students to become aware of their own intellectual process if attention is focused on them reflexively. (HOD)

Suggests that viewing aesthetic reading as a process whereby readers and writers attempt to "make contact" and collaborate in making meaning forces one to adopt research strategies that go beyond measuring reading comprehension, and offers two studies to illustrate these ideas. (JC)