Examines effects on recall and comprehension of a passage from a fourth-grade textbook and versions revised for greater coherence or to exhibit voice. Finds that, immediately after reading, the voiced coherent passage held significant advantage over all other passages in both recall and comprehension. Finds similar, though statistically…

Explains eight categories of friendly text features: text organization, signaling, discourse consistency, cohesion, explication, conceptual density, metadiscourse, and instructional devices. Extratext determinants of readability (reader, goal, teacher) are also examined. Within the context of two models of reading, the interaction of these…

Explains the details of a method of teaching text structure that proved successful in improving both reading comprehension and summary writing of fifth graders. Reports that students quickly learned how to attend to and remember main ideas from problem-solution passages in their textbooks and how to write summaries. (MG)

Uses a cognitive processing perspective to revise fifth grade social studies texts, to describe those revisions, and to demonstrate their effects empirically. Finds that students reading the revised text recalled more material and answered more questions correctly than did those reading the original text. Concludes that a text-processing approach…