Using Mariolina Salvatori's "difficulty paper" assignment to explore student experiences when reading, this paper examines basic writing students' difficulties with reading in the composition classroom. The authors argue that examining difficulty can provide an entry point for understanding how students experience the (dis)connections…

Unlike the vocabulary used in language arts and social studies, knowledge of expository text (text written to inform) and the language of science are required for reading and writing in science (Carrier 2005). This vocabulary, along with expository text structures, often is not taught in middle and high school classrooms, thus hindering students,…

Community college remedial reading students composed an informational report from sources. Productivity, use of source text, reproductions, accuracy, and inclusion of key ideas were analyzed as a function of text density and domain (health, business), and prior knowledge and general literacy skill. Text density interacted with literacy skill for…

Studies second, fourth, and sixth grade students to answer four questions to determine whether comprehension of anaphora is a strong structural factor in children's personal composition as it is in reading comprehension. Concludes that students' reading and writing are correlated in the frequency and use of singular and plural pronouns. (MG)

Analyzes above and below average readers' informational reports, which synthesize both source texts and writer-generated materials. Concludes that general reading ability and success at synthesizing overlap, and that success at synthesis may be related to cognitive factors associated with comprehension, such as sensitivity to text structure. (RS)