Coherent writing skill is an important prerequisite for academic success, especially at the tertiary level. This work studied the effect of four-month teaching intervention of genre pedagogy with Reading to Learn (R2L) approach for developing coherence in argumentative writing. It was implemented on 40 undergraduate Pakistani English Language…

The interplay between student and teacher expectations about the requirements for successful learning in higher education (HE) can impact on successful student outcomes. This study aims to identify and understand the expectations that first year university students have towards essay production during their acculturation to HE. By examining the…

The introduction and wide use of devices, especially mobile ones, has changed the way learners read and do research for a variety of reasons, and this trend has attracted a number of studies conducted regarding reading on screen and on paper in addition to those dealing with the students' behavior in using online resources to print ones. This…

Two experiments compared how relatively long novel prefixed words (e.g., "overfarm") and existing prefixed words were processed in reading. The use of novel prefixed words allows one to examine the roles of whole-word access and decompositional processing in the processing of non-novel prefixed words. The two experiments found that,…

Describes an International Reading Association award-winning dissertation comparing the processes of comprehending written language with the processes of spoken language.

Noting the differences in processing information by reading and by listening, two studies examined subjects' ability to detect errors in written and oral prose. In both experiments, college students were presented with four expository passages drawn from different written sources. All passages were approximately 300 words and 5 paragraphs long,…

A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of priming, using the first of several metaphors with common ground (the relationship or similar characteristics between the subject of a metaphor and the term used metaphorically) to facilitate comprehension of successive related metaphors. Ten groups of three to five metaphors with common…

Examines a broad spectrum of college students' understanding of reading. Finds that students of lower ability characterized good readers as those who read quickly and often, and they characterized the reading process as a passive activity; more capable readers viewed reading as an interactive process. (RS)

Five studies compared how skilled readers arrived at an understanding of what they were reading with how children learning to read comprehended primers. Undergraduate, second, fourth, and sixth grade students read orally stories in which various aspects of the stories were distorted (pronounceable nonwords substituted for real words, semantically…

Examines the differences between divided and alternating patterns of comparison-contrast text structures and reports on the effects these patterns exert on the performance of college developmental readers. Concludes that the type of comparison-contrast structure does not significantly effect comprehension and that, overall, developmental readers…

A study was undertaken to identify the strategies good and poor readers at the university level use when reading a text assignment. Forty-four study strategies were identified based on answers to a questionnaire concerning how they studied that was given to one hundred university freshmen enrolled in an elective reading and study skills class.…

The purpose of this research project was to investigate the assumption of equivalent evaluative skills in good and poor readers. The first goal was to test whether in fact good and poor readers were equivalent in their evaluative skills when not constrained by the reading process. The second intent was to provide a reading condition in which good…

A study compared the effectiveness of charting, or organizing, information into a matrix with that of a read and study strategy. Charting was defined as a strategy in which information is organized into four categories (topic, subjects, main points, and details), thereby showing how ideas are similar and dissimilar. Students enrolled in a…

Two experimental studies were conducted to compare two typical reading tasks--critical reading and proofreading--on computer display and on hard copy. Ten college freshmen with less than 10 total hours spent on a computer prior to the experiments were trained on the computer system for approximately three hours in two sessions before beginning the…