This study examined the influence of critical reading orientation on use of external strategies such as note-taking and underlining while reading an expository text. In two experiments, undergraduate students were asked either to review an article on a linguistic policy (critical reading) or to summarise it (less-critical reading). Experiment 1…

Analyzes the familiarity or distance aspects as well as interest in topics of texts in the light of reader-text interaction. Results found that familiarity and interest with a topic of a text may influence the reading process in terms of evaluation, reader text interaction, and critical reading. (20 references) (Author/VWL)

Asserts that teachers should help students move beyond an information-exchange view of reading to a more complex rhetorical model of constructing meaning. Reports on a study which investigated meaning constructions and compares the more traditional function/feature strategies of constructing meaning with rhetorical strategies, which construct…

A study established the logical validity of instructional activities for teaching reading evaluatively. These activities operationalized a theory of literacy and a model of reading comprehension developed by L. Dagostino and J. Carifio that specify 20 general characteristics of literate students who read evaluatively. Nineteen secondary classroom…

Noting that children must be provided with the opportunity to read various types of text as early as possible if they are to develop into strategic and self-directed readers, this paper presents research evidence to show that every text type makes unique demands on readers. The first section of the paper discusses reading in the school context,…

Teaching models, derived from theory and research, are static, and lack responsibility. Models substitute an abstracted notion for teachers. Literature can be viewed as a field of play, where meaning opens, rather than as a body of knowledge. The teacher's challenge consists of posing questions that allow students to formulate their takes on a…

Focusing on the ways in which skilled readers detect ironic subtexts in nonfiction prose, a study examined strategies used by readers to infer writers' aims in ironic discourse and compared these strategies with those revealed by other recent reading process studies. Subjects, six graduate students and five college freshmen, were asked to read…

Intended for literature instructors, this digest explains the relationship of transactional theory (a reciprocal, mutually defining relationship between the reader and the literary text) to the teaching of literature. The importance of the reader's part in literature is first demonstrated, noting that attention must be paid to who the readers are,…

Some educators (Ravitch, 1990) have suggested that students use multiple source documents to study history. Such documents could be primary sources, such as Congressional bills or eyewitness accounts, or secondary sources, such as later commentaries. This study examined the processes used when 19 tenth-grade high school students were presented…

A qualitative study examined the ways in which middle school and high school students create meanings when they are reading literary and non-literary texts. Subjects, 18 seventh-grade and 18 eleventh-grade students attending schools in an inner city or a suburban school district and judged by their teachers to be either above, at, or below average…

Acknowledging that the literary quality of children's stories strongly affects reading comprehension and interest in reading, a study examined how inside view (the insight an author provides about a character's thoughts and feelings) affects the presentation of character beliefs and plans. The study was based on the following premises: (1) basal…

To illustrate the interdependent relationship between critical thinking and reading comprehension, and to show that critical thinking can be infused into classroom instruction using ordinary classroom materials (e.g. selections from a basal reading series), a study analyzed the transcript of a critical-thinking reading lesson for sixth grade…

Reading comprehension can be more effectively taught using new instructional frameworks--such as explicit comprehension instruction--rather than the basal reading model. Traditionally, comprehension has been taught through a process of mentioning the skill that students should apply, practicing the skill in workbooks, and assessing student…

A study was conducted to identify strategies used by successful readers in comprehending and interpreting various kinds of texts. Seventy-three graduate students were asked to keep a journal (unedited and freely written) of what they were thinking as they were reading Umberto Eco's novel "The Name of the Rose." Selected journal entries…

Suggests that viewing aesthetic reading as a process whereby readers and writers attempt to "make contact" and collaborate in making meaning forces one to adopt research strategies that go beyond measuring reading comprehension, and offers two studies to illustrate these ideas. (JC)