Investigates the impact of macroprocessing and microprocessing strategy instruction on text learning among high school remedial students over a 6-week period. Results indicate that, of 66 students assigned to 1 of 3 treatment groups, the macro-level group exceeded the other 2 groups on comprehension and on immediate and delayed passage recall…

This study investigated factors affecting second/foreign language (L2) reading comprehension in a hypermedia environment within the theoretical framework of dual coding and cognitive load theories, and interactive models of L2 reading. The independent variables were reading ability, topic interest, prior topical knowledge, and the number of times…

First published in 2007. The focus of this book is on the cognitive processes involved in comprehension, and moreover, on techniques that help readers improve their ability to comprehend text and it is also on reading comprehension strategies. Indeed, the use of effective reading comprehension strategies is perhaps the most important means to…

A study examined the effects of an instructional intervention designed to improve high school students' ability to comprehend the gist of biology text materials. Subjects were divided into a strategy group, a read-study group, and a control group. The strategy subjects were given eight days of instruction in a procedure designed to help them…

The story comprehension patterns of 21 good and poor sixth grade readers were examined across four modality combinations for input and output: (1) listening and oral recall, (2) reading and recall, (3) listening and written recall, and (4) reading and written recall. The subjects were asked to summarize important information in a different short…

Sixty children, 20 from each of grades 1, 3, and 5 served as subjects in a study that examined how elementary school age children realize the intent of directives embedded within written and picture book narratives. Directives were defined as the range of language forms used to direct actions (imperative statement, need/want statement, permission…

Analysis of 165 studies (representing the testing of 1,418,899 subjects) that reported data on gender differences in verbal ability indicated a slight female superiority in performance. The difference is so small that it appears that gender differences in verbal ability no longer exist. A major goal was also to define age trends in the pattern of…

More than 1,000 studies of reading research published between July 1, 1982, and June 30, 1983 are summarized in this report. The studies are arranged into six categories: (1) Summaries of Reading Research, (2) Teacher Preparation and Practice, (3) The Sociolgy of Reading, (4) Physiology and Psychology of Reading, (5) The Teaching of Reading, and…

Focusing on the social nature of reading instruction provides another direction to research and study that both differs from and adds to cognitive research. H. Mehan's theory of social constructivism emphasizes that the development of cognitive processes occurs within the individual through the internalization of interactions between learners and…

Recent research has shown that when individuals hear an impoverished, atypical, or disorganized story and are asked to recall it, they can and do produce a canonical version of it. To determine if this "strategic" manipulation of story structure undergoes developmental changes, two experiments were conducted using second and sixth grade children…

Part of a continuing series intended for use by reading professionals interested in understanding and improving the reading of adolescents, this report contains five articles dealing with a variety of subjects. Specific topics discussed in the articles include (1) remedial readers' comprehension during silent and oral reading, (2) recall and…

The 594 studies referenced in this volume, the first of a two-volume set, synthesize reading comprehension research conducted from 1974 to 1984. The 12 chapters cover the following topics: (1) the necessity for both quantitative and qualitative meta-analysis for a complete state-of-the-art understanding of any domain, (2) the background of the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 25 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effect of reading ability, mode of presentation, and passage familiarity on the general and precise comprehension of expository text; (2) a constructivist…

Some basic pattern-analyzing functions that occur during the reading process are described in this paper. The functions deal mainly with the analysis of typographical factors such as word shape, spacing, and orientation, but they also interact with contextual variables. The research interpreted in the paper proposes an attentional model of reading…

A study was conducted to determine if increasing the redundancy of sections in scientific articles where typical readers became bored or confused would have a desirable effect on other readers. Undergraduate journalism students applied R. F. Carter's signalled stopping technique to two different science articles by indicating points where they…