The studies reported here are part of a research program whose purpose is to increase the effectiveness with which students acquire knowledge from written instructional materials. The studies had both a basic and an applied objective. The basic objective was to obtain evidence upon which to base a theory of the processes involved in language…

Competent middle school teachers must both extend students' abilities in the decoding and comprehending skills and stimulate their applications of these reading skills in content area texts. In considering this differentiation of instruction, teachers should be aware of an aptitude by treatment interaction (ATI)--no one technique will produce the…

Many students assessed as being weak in reading comprehension have no reading disability, but are being asked to read material above their language and conceptual levels of competence. (DD)

In an exploration of the comprehension process of the beginning reader, 16 first and second grade students were each asked to listen to two stories--one a narrative account and the other an expository passage-- and then immediately to retell them. Recall protocols were compared by propositional analysis for text-related superordinate and…

AN EXPERIMENT WAS CONDUCTED IN A TYPICAL SCHOOL SITUATION TO DETERMINE IF VARIATIONS AMONG TEACHER PRESENTATIONS OF LISTENING TESTS (READING ABILITIES) HAVE DIFFERENT EFFECTS ON THE RESULTS OF THESE TESTS. LISTENING TESTS WERE ADMINISTERED TO PUPILS OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, AT THE HIGH SCHOOL, JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL, AND…

Children in grades 1-3 were asked to retell and explain a series of riddles. Ability to recall riddles was not predictive of ability to explain them. Three cognitive factors seemed to determine level of riddle competence. Implications concern the relationship of riddle competence to reading ability and metalinguistic facility. (CHK)

Described are four techniques for improving student reading skills, particularly comprehension and vocabulary expansion, in ethnic studies classes. The techniques involve the use of oral research reports, diagrams, cartoons, and multisensory demonstrations. (Author/DB)

The applicability of a proposed category system for identifying different types of poor readers in grade 7 was investigated. Three variables were used: vocabulary level, degree of consensual response to meaning, and response to organization when it was added to the reading material. Systematically combining the three levels of response produced…

Introduces a taxonomy of applied methods to help industrial arts teachers improve the reading abilities and verbal aptitudes of their students. The taxonomy is divided into five major sections: vocabulary, comprehension skills, interpretation skills, work study skills, and reading range (a more discriminatory reading ability). (CSS)

Two hundred Honolulu-area students from the fourth, fifth, eighth, and ninth grades participated in a study that examined the variables effects of five selected factors (developmental level, sex, reading ability, adult intervention, and variation in film content/form) on the ability of two age groups (nine and ten year old children and thirteen…

Metacognition refers to an individual's knowledge concerning his/her own cognitive processes. Children's metacognitive strategies were examined in a study predicated upon R.J. Spiro's hypothesis that subjects tend to reproduce (literally recall) text information in formal situations and to reconstruct (inferentially recall) it in informal…