This paper suggests that by emphasizing word identification skills and oral reading and by using limited reading materials, teachers have neglected reading for meaning. Following a review of current instructional practices, the paper explains how understanding writing depends on the world experience, language knowledge, and processing strategies…

The findings from a study of five students undertaken to determine how unskilled college writers compose, whether their writing processes can be analyzed in a systematic manner, and what an increased understanding of those processes suggests about the nature of composing and about the manner in which writing is taught are presented in this paper.…

THE BASES OF READING RESEARCH AND THE FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES OF READING WERE PRESENTED. FOLLOWING AN OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH IN READING FROM ABOUT 1916 TO THE PRESENT, THE AUTHOR DEFINED READING AS A BASIC BUT COMPLEX SKILL, AND EXAMINED SOME COMPONENTS WHICH MAKE UP THE SKILL. IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROCESS OF READING WAS DESCRIBED IN TERMS OF THE…

Neither grammar-translation methods in foreign language learning nor the subsequent emphasis on spoken language paid sufficient attention to the importance of fluent reading with comprehension in a foreign language. However, the introduction of new means of testing, notably by multiple-choice questions, stimulated renewed interest in the…

The central feature of language is symbolic meaning, and the act of reading is a part of the symbolic process that characterizes human life. Meaning occurs as a result of interpretation in a context, not as a result of response or reaction. Signs have a literal meaning in a specific context, while symbols have a figurative meaning in an implicit…

This paper proposes that phonics and meaning instruction in beginning reading programs can be designed to be mutually supportive. The first section outlines attempts to modify a commercially available reading program in order to provide useful phonics instruction strategies. Students showed strong gains on achievement tests after implementation of…

In discussing instructional approaches to reading, this book offers several definitions of reading and discusses teaching techniques, including early methods, the basal approach, and recent trends, among them the phonics approach, the linguistics approach, the language experience approach, the initial teaching alphabet, individualized reading,…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a meaning-emphasis or a code-emphasis method of teaching beginning reading to first-grade children was most efficacious. The following procedures were employed: establishment of a workable definition of the reading process, development of an experimental design in which the control of natural…

A series of lessons designed to explain what the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) is and to prepare prospective teachers of i.t.a. materials and methods as thoroughly as possible is presented. The eight lessons of the course, for each of which a separate booklet is provided, include the following: (1) The difficulties of traditional orthography…

Collected together in this volume are the background papers for the National Advisory Committee on Dyslexia and Related Reading Disorders. Papers include "The Nature of the Reading Process"; "Bases of Classification of Reading Disorders"; "Sex Differences in Reading Disability"; "Dyslexia: Neurological and Genetic Etiology"; "Dyslexia and Its…

Subject-area teachers are not expected to be reading experts, but they can help students overcome reading difficulties. Students often fail to meet the subject-matter demands due to lack of purpose in reading content, unfamiliarity with technical vocabulary, and the heavy concept load and idea density in the material. Teachers can use reading…

Three instructional conditions which varied in the extent to which they emphasized direct instruction on word meanings were compared as to their effects on two aspects of reading comprehension: recalling word meanings and recalling facts from a story. The instructional conditions consisted of (1) meanings from context, which required students to…

Discusses the emerging assumptions of literature and its teaching that knowledge is made and must be remade by each person. Considers the relationships between the reader and the text, the reader and the reader, and the relationship between texts. (EL)

Describes how two college professors showed their undergraduate students how a whole language classroom works. (FL)

Research on levels of questioning and their effects on learning is reviewed. It is shown that higher level questions facilitate reproductive and productive knowledge, but the reasons why are not clearly understood. An information processing model which accounts for question level effects is discussed. (MH)