Reports on two experiments which examined whether normal and disabled readers differed in the ability to use orthographic structure information to process printed material. Finds that disabled readers use orthographic structure information as much or more than normal readers. (MM)

Compares remedial readers to more proficient readers in their meaning-making processes during the reading of literary text. Reveals that the remedial readers spend a disproportionate amount of being out of "envisionments"--either attempting to step into one or failing to step in. (MG)

Reports on a study stemming from schema theory that assessed the role that background knowledge plays in determining young children's ability to process relationships that are explicitly and fully specified in a text, in comparison to those that are only partially specified by the same text. (Author/HOD)

Primary school children performed a discrete-trial Stroop task in which they named the colors of stimuli that either matched or did not match items that were being concurrently held in memory. Results indicated a developmental trend toward the color being named faster when the stimulus matched the item held in memory. (Author/HOD)

Poor readers' ability to use knowledge-based processing strategies was investigated by comparing good and poor readers' recall of familiar and unfamiliar text. Findings suggest that poor readers' comprehension suffers when their use of prior knowledge is restricted. (HOD)

Illustrates a strategic-process perspective toward reading skill development, discusses cognitive research related to early reading processes, and relates the perspective to a variety of research on the early reading period (grades one to six). (JM)

Examines and supports the notion that many of the problems evidenced by poor readers are related to their passive response to the interactive task of reading. (MM)

Good readers in grades 5 and 6 read material changed to include particular types of orthographic anomalies to determine if the perceptual unit in reading was the letter or some other unit larger than the letter. (HOD)

Concludes that the ability to detect small differences in pairs of pictures, letters, or words does not change beyond grade 3, but the ability to recognize sound-alike words improves through the grades. (RB)

Response latencies were obtained in word matching and sentence completion tasks from disabled readers, age-matched normal readers, and reading-level matched normal readers. Results indicated that perceptual and semantic processing are interconnected and improvements in the speed and accuracy of one facilitates improvements in the other. (HOD)

Outlines three constructs of text difficulty: text-based (objective), performance-based (behavioral), and a combination of the two (subjective). (HOD)

The effects of manipulating the connective words "because" and "after" on fifth graders' reading comprehension was examined. The results provide no support for the notion that sentence length is related to comprehensibility or that implicit connectives are more difficult to comprehend. (HOD)

Examines children's comprehension and learning of expository texts on micro-, local-, and global-level processing skills. Finds a gradual increase in higher level processing skills with age. Notes that critical developmental patterns from nine-year olds onward took place in local- and global-level processing. Finds that developmental patterns were…

In this study 60 first and fourth graders selected pictures that best represented the meanings of sentences read to them. Results indicated that children were instantiating the target words with specific concepts rather than bringing to mind abstract, undifferentiated meanings. (HOD)

An examination was made of factors affecting reading performance of upper elementary students. Factors included effects of questions placed at various positions in the text, role of factual and inferential questions used as adjunct aids, and differences in processing strategies used by the readers in probed recall tasks. (Author/HOD)