Presents the first part of a six-part series reporting on a research project to investigate how students make sense of a text, what disempowers meaning making, what empowers meaning making, how readings might be meaningfully assessed, and how readers might be empowered in classrooms. Invites readers to join in the investigation. (SR)

Describes an instructional practice called "SCAN and RUN" (intended to promote greater reading comprehension development and success in a wider range of students) that uses a novel system of seven cues for strategies to increase reading comprehension by guiding students' understanding, learning, and recall of content material. Presents encouraging…

Shows that it is necessary to spend time to teach students how to read their mathematics textbooks. Finds that instruction related to skills and strategies for reading students' mathematics textbook aided students in their ability to complete homework assignments. (SR)

Evaluates 98 secondary reading strategy studies for internal and external validity. Addresses experimental design, data collection, and statistical analysis. Discuses specific strengths and weaknesses of the research. Offers suggestions for improvement of intervention research in the areas of design, data collection, and statistical analysis. (RS)

Describes a classroom-based research project that investigated how talking and writing about the novel "Sarah, Plain and Tall" (by Patricia MacLachlan) and rereading parts as a group helped four deaf teenagers build meaning and broaden their understanding of the story. (SR)

Examines the relationship between general knowledge, skills in applying reading strategies, and reading comprehension for ninth-grade students in Israel at varying educational levels: academic, semi-academic, vocational and learning disabilities. Reveals differential contributions of general knowledge and strategy application to reading…

Focusing on content area reading in secondary education, this annotated bibliography contains references to 29 articles and papers in the ERIC database, dating from 1987 to 1989. The citations include articles discussing computer-assisted strategies, and reading strategies in math, science, and social studies. Other citations include articles…

Addressing the question of how schools and teachers can foster an advanced level of reading awareness among secondary students, this paper focuses on the similarity in language used to describe recent research on both the composing process and comprehension as acts of constructing meaning. It presents a perspective on the reading/writing…

Recommends teaching students to use text structure clues to determine the organizational patterns of content material and instructing students to use these patterns to predict possible test questions, because many students are not aware of text structure clues and consequently do not apply them to their text reading. (SKC)

This 37-item annotated bibliography is a review of literature in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database from 1976-1989 related to vocabulary instruction in secondary education. The majority of citations in the bibliography provide articles with specific strategies for teaching vocabulary in content classrooms. The remainder…

Reviews relevant research in reading comprehension strategies and cooperative learning methods. Describes reading strategy groups as an approach for content area instruction, along with practical suggestions for implementation. (JD)

Offers three explanations for why students lack the strategies for independent learning and follows that with five practical recommendations for improving study strategies. (HOD)

Defines the method of "think alongs," which are representations of a reader's process of constructing meaning. Illustrates how think along methods of reading instruction might be used in secondary science, math, or social studies classrooms by focusing on critical learning issues in each area. (HB)

The concept of autonomy can help secondary reading teachers help their students to become better readers and users of text. Research indicates that many students in content areas do not know how metacognitive strategies can be implemented so that students can become autonomous. Practical suggestions for helping readers become autonomous include…

Examines middle and high school students' views of instructional practices teachers use to facilitate reading of difficult textbooks. Finds differences between students' perceptions of the desirability of textbook adaptations (high) and their perceptions of the frequency of teachers' use of adaptations (low). Discusses the disparity between…