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,…

Proposes a "partial explanatory" model of document processing. Describes research underlying the model, presents a grammar of documents, defines and illustrates the variables underlying the model using a set of tasks relating to a bus schedule, and demonstrates the advantages of explanatory over exploratory models of document processing. (SR)

Concludes that spatial information is available to readers only under very specific conditions. Notes that readers told to focus on spatial details had the information available, but that, when told to read for comprehension, spatial information did not become available. Finds also that spatial information was available only when it was required…

Finds that the reader's purpose for reading (read-to-do or read-to-recall) partially determines what type of mental representation is stressed during comprehension. Finds that the processing of procedural text is codetermined by the participants' purpose for reading and type of text (narrative versus list-like) as well as the text structure (as…

Maintains that progress in understanding reading is impeded when researchers working from different perspectives adopt the assumption of paradigm incompatibility. Argues that this assumption is false, and that progress toward a comprehensive understanding of the reading process would be hastened if investigators from all perspectives agreed to a…

Attempts to unify two major approaches to the study of text comprehension into a process model of causal reasoning which explains how readers discover the causal structure of a complicated text. Presents empirical evidence to support the model. (RS)

Reviews prominent reading theories in light of their accounts of how automatic and control processes combine to produce successful text comprehension, and the trade-offs between the two. Presents the Compensatory-Encoding Model of reading, which explicates how, when, and why automatic and control processes interact. Notes important educational…

Reading is a process that bridges the distinction between perceptual and cognitive processes but the formalisms of the information processing approach to the study of reading apply most naturally either to models assuming a series of noninteracting stages of information processing or to a set of independent parallel processing units. This paper…

Notes that, according to dual-route models of reading, consistency effects in pseudoword reading are evidence for the activation of lexical information. Investigates whether lexical interference has a semantic or non-semantic origin. Provides evidence for the existence of a lexical non-semantic pathway in reading aloud among a group of Italian…

Attempts to develop a model for research in reader response to literature which accounts for three sources of variation: those among texts, readers, and contexts. (DD)

Presents a rationale for systematic notemaking (annotating directly onto the pages of textbooks) to reorganize content, a model of the notemaking continuum, an example of a journal assignment, a six-step coding system for notemaking with literature, two formats for coding--one for themes and one for character analysis, and conclusions on the…

Supports Frederiksen's (1975) model of the structure of text and of memory through a study of the effects of manipulation of four aspects of text structure with community college and Ivy League subjects. (AA)

Competing views of written texts, of the process of writing, and of the purposes of the scholarly investigation of written discourse appear inherently at odds. Today composition theory is often demeaned as being only pedagogical while literary study is granted the status of a self-fulfilling academic pursuit. What is needed is a model or matrix…

Asks what role miscue analysis might play and how it might be (re)defined, given a view of reading and writing as "complex human activities taking place in complex human relationships." Examines some of the original assumptions underlying miscue analysis, then redefines it by highlighting three aspects of reading and writing:…

Investigates the influence of sentence context on the processing of concrete and abstract words. Results indicate that abstract words take longer than concrete to comprehend and to judge their meaningfulness when they occur in a neutral context. Concludes that this evidence supports the context availability model. (RS)