A study compared the average reading ability levels of freshmen enrolled at an open-door community college with the readability levels of eight content area textbooks used in courses at the institution. Subjects, 100 students enrolled in reading courses, were randomly selected and administered the Nelson-Denny Reading Test to determine reading…

Finds that although pictures do not seem to increase comprehension of the material, students prefer texts with them. Concludes that pictures provide no cognitive benefit but do have an affective impact on students, the nature of which was not determined by the research. (SRT)

A readability study for the Albuquerque Technical-Vocational Institute (T-VI) was undertaken to provide information regarding the reading ability required to complete training and to function in entry-level jobs. Readability formulas were applied to materials used in training and on the job. In addition, students were tested for level of reading,…

This article discusses three major reasons why children who can decode the stories in their basal readers may still have problems reading content area textbooks. The reasons include: (1) lack of prerequisite knowledge (including content, discourse, and strategic knowledge); (2) poorly written textbooks; and (3) negative classroom experiences in…

The language used in environmental education texts has linguistic features that affect students' comprehension of concepts and their ability to envision solutions to environmental problems. Findings indicate that features of texts such as abstract nouns and lack of explicit agents impede students' full comprehension of complex issues and obscure…

A study tested the effects of hedges (which signal writers' tentative assessment of referential information) on readers' learning. Subjects, 145 ninth-grade students from three middle class junior high schools in a midwestern city who were ranked on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, participated in the experiment--74 were randomly assigned to an…

Examines the nature and prevalence of author-provided cues to effective processing of introductory college textbooks in psychology and biology. Concludes that the authors of the texts chose cues that would be effective even with relatively passive learners and rarely chose cues that demanded much activity from readers. (SKC)

Uses a cognitive processing perspective to revise fifth grade social studies texts, to describe those revisions, and to demonstrate their effects empirically. Finds that students reading the revised text recalled more material and answered more questions correctly than did those reading the original text. Concludes that a text-processing approach…

Papers in this report were presented at a conference on text characteristics, convened as part of the Learning from Text Project. The foreword describes the University of California and California State University Joint Projects Steering Committee project to determine the relationship between ability to learn from text and academic achievement,…

Intended to help teachers both improve students' text comprehension and better understand the teaching-learning process involved, this book focuses on comprehension and concept development as the central core of an effective educational program. The book's five sections deal with teaching explicit comprehension skills, precomprehension and…