This study examined the ability of young children to correct comprehension errors, considered to be an aspect of comprehension monitoring. Kindergartners and second graders (N=32) heard a story about an unfamiliar situation, then answered questions which either assessed information contained within a single sentence, required the correct…

A procedure for creating a numerical index which can be used to score and rank summaries of prose passages is described. The quality of a summary is assumed to be a function of two variables: the number of important ideas mentioned, and the number of words used. Scoring involves multiplying two ratios: a power ratio and an efficiency ratio. The…

One of the central problems in the study of fictional prose is that of distinguishing between mere linguistic regularity, which in itself is of no interest to literary studies, and regularity which is significant for the text in which it is found. General criteria for determining whether any particular instance of linguistic prominence is likely…

"Strunctional" analysis identifies, simultaneously yet separately, both the structural and functional links that tie sentence pairs together. Coherence in prose results from an appropriate combination of structural and functional relations between each sentence pair. Structural links between sentences comprise syntactic and lexical links;…

Developments in linguistics, particularly in Europe in the work of T.A. Van Dijk, a broader conception of texts that shows promise for the study of reading. Textlinguistics covers a domain of linguistics studies that are involved with texts. Textlinguists are interested not only in those obvious immediate connecting mechanisms, such as anaphora,…

The latent structure of the reading test of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Reading Literacy study was investigated. The use of latent class modeling for investigating the measurement properties of a large-scale reading assessment database is demonstrated. The study focused on response data from…

Fifty-seven secondary school students were involved in a study that examined the effects of three types of initial tests on later retention: a short answer test, a multiple choice test, and a full free recall test. Questions on the first two of these tests covered only half of the passage contents. The subjects studied a brief history text before…

A study examined the effects of within domain processing on the recall of idea units as well as the potential reversals in performance resulting from the passing of time. Subjects for the experiment were 89 undergraduate students randomly assigned to six conditions related to target words in a reading passage: counting e's, determining the…

A model has been developed for studying the relation between text structure and reading comprehension, emphasizing the reader's use of world knowledge and text-structural knowledge to evaluate and interpret meaning from text. When the highlights of the model are considered from the perspective of various expository texts used in research on…

Each of these ten creative writing assignments includes a model poem, a writing idea, and suggested discussions or activities related to the writing idea. The assignments can be used to stimulate either poetry or prose writing. (Author/AA)

Two studies involving 127 undergraduates provide a direct test of whether an activated schema can influence both the initial encoding and subsequent retrieval of information from prose. Results indicate that schema activation exerts an influence on retrieval processes but not on encoding processes. (TJH)

The secondary task method is utilized to assess cognitive capacity usage during, and immediately following, interspersed mathemagenic questions of different levels. The method also assesses the relationship between this usage and prose material recalled or recognized from differing positions and different types. The experiment involved 120…

This study sought to develop a method for describing readers' perceptions of the topical organization of prose and to specify text features that determine perception of organization. A hierarchical clustering analysis was applied to high-school and college readers' judgments of the topical relatedness of sentences in two prose passages. This…

"Levels of processing" is an explanatory framework postulating that differences in memory processing quality or effort affect the duration of the memory trace. Using recall (immediate, one week, or two week) for connected discourse processed under three semantic and three orthographic interference conditions, as well as a noninterference…

It is a surprising fact that a student of speech can compete in prose, poetry, drama, and program oral interpretation without ever needing to develop two characters, without ever needing to establish two separate focal points in the same piece, and without ever learning to adapt to a new style of writing. This can be done if the student simply…