A study of the effects of using the MRM (message unit--verb unit--message unit) instructional system on reading comprehension was studied using 69 college freshmen, 37 in an experimental group and 32 in a control group. Both groups were engaged in a variety of activities designed to promote greater reading efficiency as a regular part of their…

The hypothesized relationship between an individual's age, educational background, and ability to understand aspects of semantic ambiguity was investigated in this study. The 90 subjects included ten students in each of grades two, four, six, eight, and ten, as well as ten college undergraduates, ten graduate students, ten high school graduates,…

A review of the research on study techniques indicates that reading and generating questions from the material is an effective technique for ensuring better comprehension. Familiarity with a model of studying that divides studying into prereading, reading, and postreading provides one explanation for this effectiveness. In prereading, students…

A test battery termed "Assessment of Reading and Language Maturity" (ALARM) contains 15 subtests designed to cover the major and minor elements involved in assessing and promoting progress toward reading-language-thinking and social-emotional maturity. Although still undergoing development, ALARM has been administered to and partially…

Effective teaching strategies must be developed to help students bridge the gap between concrete operational thinking and full formal thinking in the content areas. Reading for meaning requires readers to categorize subjects, recognize relationships, develop and maintain a sequence of thought, recognize and understand inferences, and draw…

Regardless of the way in which one chooses authentic texts for a course in reading a language for special purposes, at one time or another, one is confronted with the problem of textual analysis. The analysis has to be done in view of the course objectives. A pre-instructional analysis allows the instructor to work out teaching strategies which…

Recent studies on schema theory and other concepts related to reading comprehension are discussed in this paper. Noting that the psycholinguistic model of reading views reading as a process of predicting meaning based on the reader's prior knowledge of language, the paper describes recent research that has led to a definition of reading…

The language teaching method presented here is an inter-related set of techniques for teaching target comprehension skills directly to students on both university and high school levels. Three elements of the method are discussed: (1) the basics of a comprehension-based classroom; (2) the expanded speaking component; and (3) the expanded reading…

This paper reports on a study which used a new model, the Cluster Analytic Model (CAM), to determine the relationship between college coursework and general learning, as determined by the nine item types of the General Test of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and a faculty survey of perceptions of general learned abilities in relation to…

In further exploring the relationship between teacher behaviors and student learning, this study, part of the National Study of Student Learning, examined how teacher organization and preparation and teacher skill and clarity influenced the development of general cognitive skills in the first year of college. A sample of 2,302 students attending…

Comprehension for the foreign language learner is discussed, and it is claimed that comprehension is not a by-product of the other skills but should be taught and tested throughout a course of study. The channel or medium used in communication will influence the understanding of the message. Differences involved in reading and listening…