Inference-making is a central element of successful reading comprehension, yet provides a challenge for beginning readers. Text decoding takes up cognitive resources which prevents beginning readers from successful inference-making and compromises reading comprehension. Listening does not require any decoding and could therefore offer a less…

The authors of the Common Core State Standards and publishers of literacy programs focus on an essential aspect of comprehension, the process of drawing inferences. An inference refers to any piece of information that an author does not include in text but expects readers to use to make meaning. Four common inference types are anaphoric,…

The present study investigated comprehension processes and strategy use of second-grade low- and high-comprehending readers when reading expository and narrative texts for comprehension. Results from think-aloud protocols indicated that text genre affected the way the readers processed the texts. When reading narrative texts they made more…

This study investigated whether presenting a picture before reading can encourage situation-model construction. We compared two conditions (n = 30) which differed in whether a picture of the initial situation described in a narrative text was presented before reading (i.e. pictorial-support condition) or not (i.e. no-picture condition).…

This demonstration introduces and presents an innovative online cognitive diagnostic assessment, developed to identify the types of cognitive processes that readers use during comprehension; specifically, processes that distinguish between subtypes of struggling comprehenders. Cognitive diagnostic assessments are designed to provide valuable…

Our aim in the present paper is to discuss a "cognitive view" of reading comprehension, with particular attention to research findings that have the potential to improve our understanding of difficulties in reading comprehension. We provide an overview of how specific sources of difficulties in inference making, executive functions, and…

Investigates effects of illustrations on 11-year-olds' comprehension of abstract and concrete passages. Reveals no significant effects due to the illustrations, although ability effects were found for literal, inferential, and total comprehension. (DF)

Argues that making inferences is an integral part of reading comprehension. Presents classroom strategies based on current research that encourage inference skill development. (FL)

Describes 10 categories of inferences and proposes a three-step procedure for teaching students to make inferences while reading. (HOD)

Offers a metacognitive strategy for helping students answer inferential comprehension questions and a research-based rationale for its use. (FL)

Describes how a teacher can model the inference process to help students learn to make inferences. (HOD)

Reading comprehension instruction in many classrooms focuses on teacher-generated questions which actually measure comprehension of specific text rather than developing metacognitive strategies for comprehending all text. Explicit instruction in the metacognitive strategies of making text connections, predicting, and sequencing, was evaluated for…

Indicates that adding large amounts of supportive information to basal reader stories increased children's story understanding and enhanced their interest in the stories, but had no effect on reading rate or the amount of important information included in story retellings. (FL)

Based on the idea that inference abilities are essential to comprehension, this essay discusses systematic oral questioning strategies designed to help both junior and senior high school teachers develop students' reading comprehension abilities. Questioning strategies are examined in terms of their purpose, efficiency, motivation, and required…

A substantial amount of literature in education and psychology supports the notion that reading combined with writing enhances comprehension and recall. To investigate how various writing tasks affect thinking, a pilot study was conducted, which produced results consistent with the hypothesis that text engagement (student interaction with written…