Although critics persist in attacks on the teaching profession in general and the teaching of reading in particular, both elementary and secondary school reading scores have increased steadily over the past three decades. Even Black and Hispanic students (who still score below the averages for White students tested) have made sizeable gains in…

The graphemic and functional distribution of Chinese punctuation markers are outlined, and the implications of Chinese punctuation practices for second language instruction are discussed. Three kinds of Chinese punctuation markers are described: those graphically unique to Chinese, those written and used in the same manner in both Chinese and…

A description is provided of 12 reading skills strategies that were developed as part of a Reading across the Curriculum project to help students bridge the gap between their reading levels and the reading level of their textbooks. Following introductory information on the Reading across the Curriculum project, the 12 strategies are explained and…

Horizontal instruction techniques used to improve reading skills were tested with 63 limited-English-speaking, Spanish-dominant high school students. The students were divided into four groups. Two experimental groups received instruction in how to infer the main idea of a paragraph through sequential lessons in classification skills. Two control…

Impromptu speech is heard only once, at a rate of perception that depends on the speaker's delivery, and is specifically adapted to the listeners. These features trigger cognitive activities that facilitate translation. Impromptu speech is characterized by a constant interconnection between cognitive competence and language competence and between…

In a study examining the effectiveness of story-impressions (a previewing strategy) on story comprehension, remedial eighth grade students were asked to write predictions or "story-guesses" based on a series of one-word clues (story-impressions) that had been extracted from the material to be read. Having written a logical…

A study explored whether the use of a study guide would improve students' comprehension of content area material. Two groups of students in an eighth grade social studies class were involved: students in the control group received the usual instruction--the chapter was read orally and discussed in class--while students in the experimental sample…

Since the precise nature of the effects of notetaking encoding has not been clearly specified, a study involving 111 suburban seventh graders (southeastern Idaho) explored the differential effects of traditional notetaking and of episodic organizers (a type of semantic web or map) on the encoding of complex narrative passages. Subjects were…

A study examined the impact of instruction on the metacognitive strategies of five fifth-grade students whose vocabulary knowledge test scores were two or more stanines higher than their comprehension test scores. The students were administered "The Informal Reading Inventory" to determine their appropriate functional levels and the…

A study of the relationship of teacher attitudes toward and comprehension of Black English examined certain characteristics of a group of university graduate students in education in relation to their self-evaluations of Black English comprehension, stated attitudes, and types of interpretation errors. The characteristics of graduate students…

Intended for secondary school content area teachers, this book provides a sequence of steps through which classroom content area reading programs can be developed. The chapters discuss the following: (l) four methods of diagnosis for content area reading; (2) a procedure for assessing the richness of retellings; (3) approaches to content area…

Focusing on how children learn to read in a language they have previously only spoken, this book illustrates the skill theory of reading development, which encompasses both new perceptual processes and modified but familiar integrative cognitive processes of language comprehension. The chapters discuss the following aspects of learning to read:…

Three dimensions of school children's viewpoints on grades were examined in a developmental framework: (1) sentiment and attitudes about being graded, (2) causal perceptions and attributions about why students get good grades; and (3) comprehension of simple and complex grading systems. A total of 293 boys and girls drawn from fourth through…

This collection of competency statements deals with the reading, writing, and mathematics skills that youth participating in Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) programs should develop. Addressed in the individual sections of the volume are the following basic skill areas: gaining proficiency in elementary reading, developing the ability to read…

The skills and concepts described in this kindergarten through grade eight reading program guide emphasize the following: (1) teachers' expectations for and attitudes toward students affect student performance, (2) students' self-concepts and expectations are related to their achievement, (3) children learn in different ways and at different…