Early lexical acquisition is affected by biases and constraints within learners, but also by patterns and statistical regularities within a learner's environment. Much of the previous work examining the effect of statistical regularities on word learning has been directed at phonological regularities. Particularly, research has focused on the…

The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) II data are analysed, using multilevel modelling techniques, to explore the key issues underlying the development of school effectiveness models. Differences between schools in Grade 6 pupils' reading and mathematics achievements are examined and the percentage…

Twenty-seven low performing learning disabled fourth through sixth graders participated in two types of narrative and expository training sessions (generative-learning and scheme-based interventions). Following training, scores on comprehension measures were significantly higher. The only significant difference between treatments favored the scema…

Presents a model of the attributes of the literate reader. Expands the traditional skills and schema views of reading comprehension by including evaluation of text as a goal. Discusses the attributes of maturity, attitudes and disposition, intellectual abilities, and knowledge and experience. Discusses the need for a new assessment system for…

The KWL reading comprehension method represents what students know about a topic, what they want to know about it, and what they have learned about the topic. It is designed to enhance reading comprehension in content areas such as physical education, health, music, and technology education. (JOW)

A study explored word recognition and structural features of words as determinants of reading comprehension. Word recognition scores and comprehension scores for three age groups (6-7 years, 8-9 years, and 10-12 years) representing 1,200 children were used to examine the relationships of structural features of the word recognition task to…

Presents a model designed to expand the comprehension skills and literary interests of children in elementary school. (DD)

Describes conceptual mapping, a technique that is useful in helping poor readers overcome the difficulties they face when they read content area texts. (ARH)

Presents a model of reading comprehension development from a cognitive perspective. Employs structural equation analytical methods to evaluate within- and cross-grade relations among theoretically relevant variables. Finds phonemic knowledge drives comprehension for grades two and three; background knowledge has its greatest effect in grades three…

A meta-analysis of 20 experiments examining incidental word learning during normal reading shows that students learn around 15% of the unknown words they encounter. Results suggest that several factors affect the probability of learning an unknown word. Presents a model of sensitivity to partial word knowledge. (Contains 66 references.) (SLD)

Points to limitations of procedures used by Kim Yap in probing the causal ordering between vocabulary and comprehension skills of primary grade pupils (see EJ 206 255); cautions researchers of reading behavior not to apply Yap's procedures indiscriminately. (HOD)

A study explored an application of rauding theory to the developmental components that contribute to elementary-age children's reading comprehension. The relationships among cognitive power, auditory accuracy level, pronunciation (word recognition) level, rauding (comprehension) accuracy level, rauding rate (reading rate) level, and rauding…

Emphasizing environmental, situational, and social variables that influence behavior, this paper conceptualizes a behavioral model of comprehension anchored in the assumption that the majority of behaviors are learned or alterable through learning procedures. (Author/DS)

An inductive concept-identification model of expository text processing, consonant with current theories of macrostructure development, is proposed as part of a reading comprehension instruction model. An evaluation study with fourth and sixth graders is described. Results are interpreted as supporting the model. (Author/BS)

Argues that the mystery surrounding comprehension development can be dispelled by an understanding of schema theory and linguistic theory and especially by an understanding of W. Kintsch's model of comprehension, which draws from those bodies of theory. Describes teaching methods based upon Kintsch's model. (FL)