Although the research base is small on adult English language learners (ELLs) who are learning English while also acquiring basic literacy, this research can still guide instructional practices. The essential components of reading skills suggests that the Language Experience Approach has the potential to integrate relevant meaning-focused reading…

The case study of a third-grade learning disabled boy demonstrates effectiveness of meaning-centered tutoring involving observation, reading to S, and hearing the S language experiences. (MC)

Using the language experience approach, the authors adapted a nutrition pamphlet for less skilled adult readers. Comprehensibility and communication effects of this pamphlet were compared to a standard version. Readers were able to comprehend the pamphlet at least as well as the standard version and were more accepting of its message. (Author/CH)

This paper discusses six instructional techniques for strengthening strategies of comprehending written language: the language experience approach to develop awareness of the sensible nature of language; story-division to strengthen semantic prediction; reader-illustrations to develop thought units; paragraph-analysis to reduce uncertainty;…

Noting that comprehension studies have stressed the importance of determining the main idea of reading instruction, this paper offers a teaching strategy--the Modified Language Experience Method--that has proven successful in teaching main ideas to secondary school students. The paper first compares the strategy, which begins with the general…

Teachers can encourage students to see reading as meaning-making in a number of ways. Context support methods begin by ensuring that the context is already familiar to students so that word recognition is made easier. Language experience approaches encourage children to learn to read by first reading what they have produced. Real books, as…

Discusses the effect of previous knowledge on reading comprehension. Suggests reading instruction methods that evoke the readers' experiences, or schemata, relevant to the material. (HTH)

First, second, and third grade students were asked to draw inferences after reading stories written by themselves, by peers, and by adults. The 70 subjects were divided into groups of slow-inaccurate, slow-accurate, and fast-accurate readers. After reading each type of story, they responded to six questions requiring text-based inferences.…

The behaviorist and cognitive views of learning and language are contrasted, and some methodologies derived from the opposing positions are described. Programed reading in the form of machines, kits, and self-servicing devices of all sorts and most basal reader programs are identified as products of the behaviorist theory of reading instruction.…

This study investigated the effect on the reading comprehension of preschool children of matching syntactic patterns in written materials to patterns in their level of language acquisition. It also examined whether a language experience method or a prescribed vocabulary method had different effects on the results. Eighty randomly selected subjects…

Shows how the language experience approach is a useful tool in teaching expository prose structure to elementary school students. (EL)

Reports findings of a study demonstrating that language experience techniques can help students comprehend math story problems and successfully apply the mathematical concepts necessary for their solution. (FL)

Lists suggestions for implementing a reading-for-meaning instructional approach that focuses on the development and comprehension of language. (FL)