Understanding the precursors and early indicators of dyslexia is key to early identification and effective intervention. Now there's a single research volume that brings together the very latest knowledge on the earliest stages of dyslexia and the diverse genetic, neurobiological, and cognitive factors that may contribute to it. Based on findings…

Reading difficulties and disabilities present serious and potentially lifelong challenges. Children who do not read well are more likely to be retained a grade in school, drop out of high school, become a teen parent, or enter the juvenile justice system. Building on the extant research and seminal studies, including the National Reading Panel and…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not children in grades two, four, and six make consistent use of Haviland and Clark's Given-New Strategy in visually and aurally comprehending presuppositive negatives. (HOD)

Sensitivity to story information that conflicted with expectations was examined in kindergarten, second, fourth, and sixth grade children. The children either read or listened to stories about familiar events. One story was consistent with children's "scripts" for these events, while the other story contained script-inconsistent information. All…

Recognizing the need for some form of evaluation of students' ability to understand the organization of ideas in different subject areas, a study was conducted to evaluate 450 paragraphs written by students aged 12 to 17. Students chose one of three groups of four words each to write on. Each group represented a category, the subjects being…

To determine how writing, as compared to other learning activities, affects both good and poor writers' ability to remember factual information and transfer learning, a study (1) investigated the effectiveness of a writing activity requiring students to develop compositions by synthesizing information read, and (2) explored the correspondences…

Although much has been said about the influence of reading upon writing, little information is available concerning the effect of writing practice upon reading comprehension. During one experimental study, college freshmen students in a remedial reading course wrote in the expressive mode for ten minutes a day. This simple act of writing, without…

Presents results of tested theoretical models of the development of print concepts and word reading. Indicates that children expand their knowledge in each of the following print components with age: print, graphic awareness, phonemic awareness, grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge, and word reading components. (NKA)

Concerned with what can be done to help produce more thoughtful, critical readers, this report first presents an historical overview of theories on the origin of language, referring to B. F. Skinner, Noam Chomsky, and Jean Piaget, among others. It then discusses biological reasons for the evolution of language and the impact of verbal language on…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 19 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) factual, elaborative, and inferential levels of text processing; (2) the effect of explicitly and implicitly presented rhetorical functions on the…

Focusing on future directions for English and reading research, the papers presented in this book examine the complex interplay of skills, processes, and classroom conditions that influence the development of children's competence in reading, writing, and the language arts. The titles and authors of the essays are as follows: (1) "Reading and…