The "levels effect," the finding that the more central to the meaning of a passage an idea is the more likely that idea is to be retained, does not seem to hold for immediate recognition. Therefore, a study was conducted to test a model of information storage that predicted that when surface structure information was preserved in its…

A study was conducted to verify the findings of previous research showing that a difference in recall of superordinate and subordinate level concepts existed among various reading ability groups within the same grade of elementary school children. Instead of especially constructed passages used in the previous studies, the study used actual…

Psychological procedures change behavior in part by creating and strengthening perceived self-efficacy, which refers to personal judgments of performance capabilities in a given activity. In addition, it has been hypothesized that attributions, or perceived causes of outcomes, exert important effects on self-efficacy. A study investigated how the…

A study examined the ability of subjects of varying ages to write summaries of very familiar material. In particular, it explored the subjects' planning activities both prior to and during the summarization task. The subjects, 15 fifth, 16 seventh, and 15 eleventh grade students and 11 college students, were given two stories to study for a week.…

Psychological research has identified a number of cognitive processes and language abilities that are involved in the development of reading skills. This paper examines the ways in which research findings relate to current curriculum practices in such areas as learning letters and sounds; developing auditory perception skills; word recognition;…

Three experiments, in which subjects read passages of variable readability, measured "cognitive capacity usage" (the attention level to reading material) by recording by subjects reaction times in a secondary task (responding to a "click"). The data indicated that the easy texts filled cognitive capacity more completely than the difficult texts,…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 27 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effect of a crowded or spaced appearance of narrative material on the reading comprehension of above-average and below-average fourth grade students; (2)…

The limitations and advantages of any given measure of performance used to classify students as good or poor readers have not been investigated thoroughly. A study was conducted to determine what happens on several dependent measures of comprehension when the same students are separated into good and poor readers based on different criteria.…

A study examined student mastery of meaning and use in reading and composing of five formal logical connectors (moreover, accordingly, hence, even so, and still) across school level and class type. Subjects were 100 remedial and nonremedial students from a high school, vocational college, and university who were asked to give a synonym for each…

The effects of various questioning strategies on reading comprehension were tested. The subjects, 24 second grade students reading at or slightly above their grade level, were divided into three instructional groups. The strategy group focused on integrating textual material with prior knowledge. The question group got a steady diet of inferential…

A sample of 48 second grade and fifth grade children, containing equal numbers of high and low ability readers, participated in a study that explored the degree to which oral and silent reading represented the same cognitive process for different age and ability level children. Their reading rates and comprehension scores for both oral and silent…

This collection provides a number of perspectives on the central role that language plays in reading comprehension. Following an introduction by the editor, entitled "Attention and Individual Differences in Comprehension," the following papers are presented: (1) "The Line of Sight Approach," by Norman H. Mackworth; (2)…

The problem of the panel on semantics, concepts, and culture, sponsored by the National Institute of Education Conference on Studies in Reading, was to determine how lexical, semantic, conceptual, and cultural factors contribute to reading comprehension. The contents of the document include the following: "Word Recognition Skills," which…

The aim of the panel on reading comprehension, sponsored by the National Institute of Education Conference on Studies in Reading, was to determine the influence of intellectual factors, general experiences with the world, knowledge specific to the particular reading task, and general decoding skills to successful reading performance. In addition,…

The paper endeavors to delineate more clearly the special reading comprehension problem of the Alaskan Eskimo and Indian. Reading comprehension is essentially a cognitive process -- the ability to engage in rigorous abstract thinking. A number of formal anthropological reports indicate that Alaskan natives, especially the Eskimo, are deficient in…