Notes that reading research has advanced from notions that reading is a visual-perception task of word recognition and decoding to more precise psycho- and neurolinguistic models of language and literacy. Concludes that reading is a skill that develops to an automatic level depending on the degree to which the individual can access phonemic and…

Focuses on inferential processes in reading and the question of whether those processes are automatic. Examines the importance of inference generation during reading comprehension. Describes research that investigates which inferences appear to be automatic. Discusses characteristics of skilled reading that are related to the automaticity of…

Discusses how students become automatic at reading sub-skills, the indicators that can be used to determine whether a student is automatic, and the psychological mechanisms that allow students to perform complex skills automatically. Discusses implications of automaticity research for teaching reading. (RS)

Reviews recent literature on automaticity, defining the criteria that distinguish automatic processing from non-automatic processing, and describing modern theories of the underlying mechanisms. Focuses on evidence from studies of reading and draws implications from theory and data for practical issues in teaching reading. Suggests that…

Examines the historical and theoretical foundations of the factory model of education and contrasts it to the more recently developed inquiry model. Argues that the factory model of education is no longer useful since democracy in the twenty-first century requires citizens who are able to think critically and use learning and language flexibly to…

Reviews the controversy over a biological basis for developmental dyslexia and illustrates it with two case studies of junior high school students. Reviews neurological evidence for developmental dyslexia, and proposes seven signs characteristic of reading disability that may qualify as dyslexia. (SR)

Finds that, in a multicomponent, computer-supported study environment, students using the computer study tools demonstrated a substantial performance advantage; however, they limited their activities almost exclusively to reviewing multiple-choice questions, and tended to be students with higher grade point averages who were prone to use…

Looks at what is known about multisyllabic words, which is a lot more than educators knew when the previous generation of multisyllabic word instruction was created. Reviews the few studies that have carried out instructional approaches to increase students' ability to decode big words. Outlines a program of instruction, based on what is currently…

Uses two formulas developed for Spanish language text to analyze 9 stories that were read by 36 Spanish-speaking second graders with limited English proficiency. Finds that the Spanish readability formulas only weakly predicted student performance, indicating the need to pursue broader, qualitative indices of difficulty for Spanish text. (SG)

Demonstrates the wide variability among children learning to read and explores the consequences of this variability for reading instruction. Shares some examples to demonstrate that variability. Demonstrates what happens when very different children read identical text. Describes a way to organize classrooms that will better accommodate the…

Reviews research on lexical access (the process of getting information about a word from a mental dictionary). Discusses implications for comprehension development. Suggests that individual differences in comprehension depend on speed of lexical access as well as on speed of decoding. (SR)

Finds that the strategies used by children with hearing impairments to invent spellings were developmentally and phonologically similar to those used by hearing children. (SR)

Argues that informal reading inventories (IRI) and the cloze procedure may provide inaccurate information and inhibit the progress of poor readers. Examines the concept of frustration level in both IRI and cloze testing. Posits that, in attempting to avoid frustrating students, educators fail to provide students with sufficient challenges.…

Contains part of the Keefe Inventory of Silent Reading, a silent informal reading inventory. Presents a case study of a student to whom it was administered, including analysis of this individual's reading ability and description of the specific strategies used with this individual on the basis of the results of the inventory. (RS)

Discusses whether or not beginning readers learn phonics best through instructional approaches that teach students to sound out letters, spell words, or combine the two. Concludes that caution is in order as experimental research assessing the effectiveness of each approach has yet to be conducted. Suggests, in the interim, instruction should be…