Reading comprehension is the goal of reading, and making inferences is vital. Authors usually expect readers to make multiple types of inferences, including anaphoric, background knowledge, predictive, and retrospective. Common core assessments include all of these, yet instructional materials focus mostly on only one type, retrospective. This…

This study intends to examine the reading process in Chinese of two young heritage language learners through the use of retrospective miscue analysis (RMA). Retrospective miscue analysis involves both the author and the reader in reflectively discussing the reader's oral reading miscues--responses that differ from the actual text. This study…

This study explores how child and text clues were related to 31 kindergarteners' word-meaning derivation outcomes for 372 words presented in books read aloud to children. Data were analyzed using a multilevel, cross-classification, ordered logit model. Children showed no word-meaning derivation 40% of the time, indicating a need for instruction.…

In this article the author describes SQUiNK, a useful tool in interacting with text for all children and at varying levels and abilities. Initially the author sought to address the needs of readers with strong skills by more fully engaging them with expository text. But through the introduction to a strategy for addressing the needs of "all"…

In this Research Connections column, Editor David Moore interviews Cynthia Greenleaf, Gayle Cribb, and Heather Howlett. Greenleaf codirects the Strategic Literacy Initiative and leads professional development projects in its Reading Apprenticeship instructional framework. Her approach to disciplinary literacy instruction is based on her findings…

This article considers the role of reader characteristics in processing and learning from informational text, as revealed in think-aloud research. A theoretical framework for relevant aspects of readers' processing and products was developed. These relevant aspects included three attentional foci for processing (comprehension, monitoring, and…

Provides a basis for understanding reading comprehension through the interactive components of metacognition (person, goal, task, and strategies). Suggests specific classroom techniques to encourage students to become self directed readers. (RS)

Exploring ways to help primary school teachers extend the literacy of their pupils, this paper devises and classroom-tests strategies whereby teachers might develop the abilities of their children to use literacy more effectively as a means of learning. It focuses on the reading and writing of non-fiction text. Outlining four basic insights into…

Argues that teaching students to use pictures in their minds improves their thinking skills. Offers a four step procedure for helping students formulate their own techniques for creating mind pictures. (FL)

Offers a metacognitive strategy for helping students answer inferential comprehension questions and a research-based rationale for its use. (FL)

Distinguishes between teacher questioning that characterizes students' textual understanding and questioning that actively engages students in the meaning-making process. Contends that there must be a proper balance between the types of questioning in classrooms that support students in their efforts to learn from text as they actively interact…

Concludes that a cloze strategy, which induced students to integrate text information with prior knowledge, yielded superior gains in comprehension compared to treatments that did not include the strategy. (FL)

Describes a metacognitive study method, LETME, designed to help students manage the entire study process by facilitating the understanding, selection, organization, retention, and analysis of information from expository text. (DF)

Argues that the secret behind truly powerful learning lies in developing students' metacognitive abilities. Presents an overview of the role of formative assessment in learning to read and in reading to learn. Discusses some research-based instructional techniques useful in helping students take executive control of the reading act. (SR)

Examines the effects of increasing adolescents' awareness of their own response strategies to reading. Illustrates the importance of ensuring that all students discover for themselves not only what they have learned, but how they have learned it. (SR)