Explores the abilities of third graders to interpret literature that serves as an extended metaphor for real life. Finds that using literature to focus children's attention on the similarities that can be drawn across diverse domains provides an avenue for higher-level thinking. (RS)

Examines the nature of third graders' responses to the literature that is read aloud to them. Documents both individual and class development in response patterns over time. Finds responding to literature fostered comprehension, discussion, and writing skills, and promoted emotional involvement with and appreciation of literature. (MG)

Analyzes, from a reader-response perspective, children's free responses to story characters in nontraditional roles. Investigates the relationship of gender for these responses. Finds that only 20-30 percent of the responses expressed opinions regarding appropriateness of nontraditional gender roles and that the most common response type was…

A study investigated the effects on reading comprehension of guided imagery instruction before reading. Subjects, 25 third-grade student volunteers from a small Montana community, were given a vocabulary pretest to determine the effect of background knowledge. They were then randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups--read only, guided…

Indicates that adding large amounts of supportive information to basal reader stories increased children's story understanding and enhanced their interest in the stories, but had no effect on reading rate or the amount of important information included in story retellings. (FL)

Describes classroom-based research on the use of reading logs with second and third graders. Discusses the range and character of student responses, student behavior about books, and the stories they tell the teachers and each other. (SR)

A study was conducted to explore the ways in which instructional method and text quality influence the young reader's interpretation of inside view and character plans in fiction. Thirty-six third graders from a northeastern, suburban, public elementary school served as subjects. Twelve children were selected randomly from students rated as…

Describes how the authors have facilitated student-led literature discussions in their second- and third-grade classrooms. Outlines the basic organizational structure that fosters response-driven conversations about books. Illustrates the various ways students speak meaningfully with each other about the literature (including inferential…

Examines the effect of a variety of picture-text conditions on third and fifth grade average readers' comprehension. Concludes that the advantage of presenting children of normal reading ability with illustrated text is small and primarily dependent on the placement of illustrations adjacent to related textual materials. (RS)

Describes a study of third- and sixth-grade students indicating no differences in comprehension between story reading on a page and on a computer screen, and that students were more interested in the story while reading from the screen, but that the story was more difficult in this condition. (HTH)

Reports on participant-observation in a third- and fourth-grade classroom in which students learned to read science texts with both "efferent" and "aesthetic" reading processes. (HTH)

Two experiments investigated whether elementary school children's difficulties in detecting inconsistencies in text are related to their failure (1) to represent each of two inconsistent propositions in memory or (2) to compare the representations of the inconsistent propositions to each other once each has been represented in memory. Overall,…

Investigates the effect of vocabulary-based and generative-reciprocal inference procedure (GRIP) training on third grade readers' comprehension. Reports that the GRIP group outperformed control and basal inference groups on various inferential transfer tasks, indicating that strategies which help students attend to text clues aid in making…

This study investigated the reading preferences of American Indian and Anglo children with respect to ethnicity of main character, gender of main character, and setting in children's stories. The 160 subjects consisted of 80 American Indians and 80 Anglos from Grades 2 and 3, divided evenly by gender and grade level. The study yielded significant…

Recent reading research has identified three reader variables involved in fluent reading: automatic word identification, contextual word identification, and text phrasing. To confirm the validity of these variables in the reading process, to test reading models employing them in an integrated and interactive manner, and to identify developmental…