College students can read, but they often lack the prereading and postreading skills needed to help them think about and respond to what they read. A three-step plan can help students read and understand the text more fully. The first step entails using measures of fitness to determine: (1) the grade level of the text being considered and how it…

The increased interest in reading comprehension by researchers in fields other than reading education is noted in this paper. In addition, the concerns of the new researchers in reading are described, some of the terms they are using are explained, and the implications of their findings for reading instruction are explored. The interests of…

The material included in this annotated bibliography has been arranged in several categories: general references to cloze procedure; methodology and rationale of cloze; cloze as a measure of readability, including cloze as a criterion to establish readability levels and as a predictor of achievement; cloze as a teaching technique; cloze in English…

The proceedings of a conference (University of Wisconsin, 1961) on the methodology and quality of handwriting research are presented in this book. After introductory remarks on current educational research, papers are presented on the following topics: (1) current (l960) teaching practices in handwriting in the United States, (2) the use of…

Explains the details of a method of teaching text structure that proved successful in improving both reading comprehension and summary writing of fifth graders. Reports that students quickly learned how to attend to and remember main ideas from problem-solution passages in their textbooks and how to write summaries. (MG)

Recent studies refuting the effectiveness of advance organizers in preparing students to comprehend text material have not met the conditions necessary for advance organizers to succeed. According to the assimilation theory, which holds that people learn by chaining what is known to what is to be learned, the following conditions must be met for…

Noting that traditional measures of textbook difficulty and traditional measures of student reading ability suffer from a lack of correspondence, this booklet deals with the problems of (1) identifying the levels of conceptual difficulty of text materials, (2) identifying students' abilities to understand text materials, (3) matching the…

Some practical ways to improve reading skills in social studies classes without sacrificing content objectives and goals are presented. It is emphasized that social studies teachers are best suited to teach reading skills in their own subject field. Social studies teachers need to focus on three reading skills: vocabulary development and word…

Explains how education majors try to learn to recognize thought unit sentences (ThUS's) and to gauge their difficulty. Shows examples of simple writing and discusses the task of writing ThUS's to match style and level of author. Gives a rationale for doing a readability analysis in this way. (FL)

The article discusses the relationship between math skills and reading ability as it relates to the learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, or mentally handicapped student. The author explains that many math books require reading at a level beyond the ability of many special needs students. (PHR)

Describes three learner assessment strategies and their possible effects on text design strategies for distance education materials. Prior knowledge, reading ability and text readability, and learning styles are examined; learner characteristics and potential instructional strategies are discussed; and the relationship of learning styles to…

Examines advantages and disadvantages of using textbooks as the basis for curriculum and instruction, discussing textbooks as the predominant instructional medium. The article describes attributes of good textbooks and text structures, identifies strategies for improving readers' text comprehension, and notes teachers' role as facilitators in…

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether a meaning emphasis or a word identification emphasis would give better results in a third grade reading lesson. The results investigated more than 30 factors and their two-way interactions. In the first experiment, 259 children were placed into reading groups arranged either homogeneously or…

Middle-school students, called "transescent learners," are at an age during which they undergo physical and intellectual changes that affect them emotionally and socially, causing confused thinking and insecure feelings. This paper offers seven guidelines to help the middle-school teacher select and present reading materials that enhance learning…

This monograph is the third in a series of semiannual reports of research related to reading in secondary schools. The first section of the monograph is made up of three research studies on the validation of teaching procedures to facilitate students' comprehension of content area texts, the graph-reading abilities of seventh grade students, and a…