People frequently struggle with comprehending the text they read and require more intensive support to develop proficiency in reading comprehension. Some find it perplexing observing all the elements and constituents of the paragraph theory. Good readers, however, can understand what a paragraph is by studying the conjunction relationships between…

Background: The teaching of reading strategies that enhance comprehension is a priority for many practising lecturers involved in academic literacy programmes. However, due to the unprepared nature of a large section of students entering the Higher Education system, a number of students have been found to lack basic literacy skills such as reading…

Background: Much of the evidence underlying guidelines for producing accessible information for people with aphasia focuses on client preference for particular design features. There is limited evidence regarding the effects of these features on comprehension. Aims: To examine the effects of specific design features on text comprehension. It was…

The effects of social annotation on critical literacy remain controversial, and little research has explained why some students can benefit from social annotation in critical literacy, and some cannot. This chapter investigates the effects of social annotation on critical literacy and the interactive patterns of social annotations. The…

This study has two aims: one is to examine whether or not there are individual differences in motivation to read English as a Foreign Language (EFL) among Taiwanese adolescents, and the other is to scrutinize whether or not a gender gap exists among those readers. A total of 252 adolescents, half of them female and the other half male,…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention for second graders at risk for academic failure, which taught reading comprehension embedded in social studies content. The intervention included instruction about the structure of cause/effect expository text, emphasizing clue words, generic questions, graphic organizers, and close…

Paragraph analysis of college textbooks is concerned with the ability of the student to discover (1) the main idea of the paragraph and (2) what the rest of the paragraph does. A method for teaching students to find main ideas and understand paragraph relationships is presented. Seven major types of thought relationships (example, explanation,…

Background: In reading research, children with specific language impairment (SLI) have tended to be included in groups of children expected to have difficulties with both decoding and reading comprehension (generally poor readers). This is because generally children with specific language impairment display difficulties with phonology as well as…

Twelve fifth and sixth grade students were located who had much greater difficulty understanding "inductively structured" paragraphs (with the main idea near the end) than understanding "deductively structured" paragraphs (with the main idea near the beginning). Compared to other students of equal overall reading ability, these…

Reviews research which indicates that children should be taught to consider their purpose for reading and should receive feedback on whether they have achieved their purpose. (MKM)

Article investigated many features, both cognitive and linguistic, of the processes involved in understanding what is read as well as effective teaching methods for developing reading comprehension. (RK)

To avoid confusing children, a reading approach from the very beginning should stress logical relationships based on experiences. Drilling words, sounds, or even sentences should be avoided since these practices lead to deviant schemes. A lifetime scheme involves teaching a child a process. Children need to learn a process by which they can…

In this study, the effect of a passage organizer (topic sentence) on the ability to identify main ideas was tested. The second purpose of this study was to determine whether main idea comprehension is affected by the type of main idea question asked. Thirty third- and thirty fourth-grade children selected on a random basis from a semi-rural…

The purpose of this study to determine if information high in the logical structure of a passage tends to be recalled better than information low in the structure. Two groups of 24 Cornell undergraduates participated in the experiment. Subjects in each group read and recalled three passages. Group one read the Breeder Reactor High, Schizophrenia…