In an exploration of the comprehension process of the beginning reader, 16 first and second grade students were each asked to listen to two stories--one a narrative account and the other an expository passage-- and then immediately to retell them. Recall protocols were compared by propositional analysis for text-related superordinate and…

A study explored whether teaching the comprehension skills of inference, drawing conclusions, sequencing, and cause and effect would increase student achievement in reading and language while at the same time imparting social science content. Subjects, 197 eighth grade students in the experimental group and 192 eighth grade students in the control…

To determine whether story mapping would improve reading comprehension, five intermediate grade students with mild learning handicaps and poor comprehension were prepared to use story mapping procedures as a schema-building technique. As they were reading, students learned to identify the setting, problem, goal, action, and outcome of narrative…

Working under the hypothesis that a child's concept of a story and his or her concept of the task of narration used to tap comprehension emerge first in social interaction, a methodology was created for studying the process of development from dependent functioning in social interaction to independent functioning based on L. Vygotsky's theoretical…

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…

The story recall abilities of 26 dyslexic children were tested, using a story schema representation previously used in research with normal children. Comparisons within the disabled reader group found significant differences in story schema knowledge, but comparisons between normal and disabled readers revealed no significant differences. However,…

The literature of reading theory and research suggests a number of key factors involved in the comprehension process. In simplest terms, comprehension is the process by which an individual actively generates meaning from some linguistic input. Five factors of reading comprehension have been identified through research: vocabulary knowledge, the…

This research studied the effects of abstract-reasoning ability, degree of bidialectism, and grade level on listening comprehension tasks presented in both Standard English and Black English and on oral reading and oral-reading comprehension tasks presented in Standard English, Black English standard orthography, and Black English nonstandard…

Argues that metacognitive development should remain--or become--an aspect of instruction that aims to enhance students' reading comprehension. (HOD)

Argues that a problem with the storage and conduit metaphor lies in its attention to representational knowledge while giving little attention to cognitive knowledge. (JC)

Reports on a study which examined children's and adults' use of text structure and content schemata in isolation and as they interact. Indicates that subjects' ability to select appropriate schemata supported the validity of both schema types. Also finds that structure and content schemata interact with schooling and text to influence processing…

Discusses a study of reading comprehension of fourth grade students by an instrument constructed by the investigator and based upon Piaget's developmental construct of intelligence. (TO)

Examines the prevailing theories of reading comprehension: the psycholinguistic model, schema theory, and the skills model. Discusses their implications for instruction. (FL)

Concludes that performance on selected items of a reading comprehension test can be predicted on the basis of performance on Piagetian classification tasks, even when other factors are controlled by a highly parallel subtest. (HOD)

Samples of 98 fourth graders and 111 sixth graders participated in a study of the relationships between operational thinking and reading comprehension of texts involving operational structures. Tests of operational thinking, reading comprehension, IQ, and vocabulary were administered in class groups. Results from correlational and factor analyses…