A study examined the effects of teacher questioning and student prediction (purpose-setting procedures) upon the reading comprehension of 188 students in grades 3 through 6. Thirty-two constructed-answer questions were developed for use with an article about kangaroos, written in an expository style and approximately 900 words in length. Half of…

A study investigated processing differences between metaphorical and literal versions of the same sentences. The purposes of the study were (1) to directly compare the on-line processing demands of metaphoric and nonmetaphoric sentences, and (2) to examine the consequences of such sentences for memory performance. The subjects were 39 college…

Working on the assumption that an adequate model of comprehension must also deal with its connotative aspect (the aspect that concerns the feeling, mood, or "tone" of the text), this paper examines the concept of contextual tone. After defining tone according to its various senses and synonymous forms (voice, attitude, style, mood, and…

A review of research concerning the nature of text organization skills that contribute to reading comprehension ability reveals two distinct categories of studies: (1) those in which texts have been manipulated so as to facilitate spontaneous syntactic-semantic organization by the reader, and (2) those in which readers have received training or…

Techniques developed to address the reading problems of an adult English as a second language (ESL) class are described. An intensive English course was developed for a group of Arabic-speaking vocational education administrators who had several years of English training. However, they performed poorly on the lowest level of a reading series.…

The concept of "structured programming" was developed to facilitate software production, but it has not carried over to documentation design. Two concepts of structure are relevant to user documentation for computer programs. The first is based on programming techniques that emphasize decomposition of tasks into discrete modules, while the second…

A study explored children's notions of what stories and reports are, how they can be organized, and when to use them, as revealed in the stories and reports they wrote or recalled and in their responses to questions about each. Sixty-seven high achieving children in grades three, six, and nine read and wrote similar kinds of stories and reports.…

Using reading models interchangeably with reading theories blurs the distinction between models as representations and theories as explanations. This report presents several models of reading comprehension and compares the functional purposes and research implications of selecting one model over another. The report draws the following conclusions:…

Operant magical thinking (belief that thought can significantly alter reality) and reading comprehension were examined in samples of Pupils 7 to 13 years old identified as either gifted, normal, or emotionally disturbed. Sixty-eight children were sampled in a school for gifted children, in a regular suburban elementary school, and in an in-patient…

The procedures described in this report are designed to help students both develop and apply effective behaviors for understanding expository text by means of gloss--a technique that involves the use of marginal notes and other intratext notations to direct readers' attention to places in the text where the application of specific skills and…

A review of schema theory and memory research shows how the organization of text can affect comprehension and how three reading strategies can aid in improving student understanding of content area materials. The three strategies that help students remember information from the author's point of view are webbing, pyramiding, and think sheets. They…

A study investigated the effects of induced mental imagery upon the comprehension of oral versus written discourse for above and below average readers. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine, through a follow-up interview, the students' ability to induce mental imagery. Sixty-three sixth grade students with above or below average…

A study to determine the effects of higher level interactive questioning procedures on the cognitive abilities of gifted students was conducted with 14 gifted sixth grade students. The students were selected from a public school enrichment program and randomly assigned to one of two groups that met for five weekly sessions. The control group was…

The ability to comprehend the gist and the main ideas of a passage are important textbook reading skills. Since research into children's ability to extract the central thoughts from prose has produced mixed findings, a study was undertaken to determine how skillful children are at comprehending the gist and the main ideas of a passage. To insure…

Marginal and other intratext notations (gloss) can be used as an instructional technique to direct readers' active attention to (1) places in text where the application of specific skills would be appropriate (either for teaching or for encouraging the application of specific skills), (2) instances where a particular strategy could be useful for…