Describes a reading program that features systematic instruction in comprehension that has been developed for Polynesian and Hawaiian children identified as educationally high risk. (AEA)

A city-wide elementary school reading program that emphasizes mastery learning and continuous progress in Chicago, Continuous Progress--Mastery Learning, is blamed for the declining reading test scores of high school students there. The program's origins and evolution are described along with a new program, Chicago Mastery Learning Reading, which…

Implications for learning and science instruction are discussed based on the interview-about-instances technique which identified five patterns of student (7-20 year olds) understandings of the concept of force. (SK)

A business professor offers a plea for clarity in communication and for the use and teaching of simple, unhackneyed English, giving examples of misuse, errors, lack of comprehension, and general bad usage. She suggests various techniques for business communication teachers to improve students' communication skills. (MF)

College students were trained on a hierarchical mapping technique designed to facilitate prose processing. The students studied a geology passage and five days later were given four types of tests. The treatment group significantly outperformed a control group; the major differences were attributable to concept cloze and essay exams. (Author/RD)

The gap between the language that foreign language teachers present to their students in the classroom and the language of real-life situations is discussed. The use of dialogues in the classroom and oral comprehension as a learning activity are covered. (SW)

Investigates the relationship between language aptitude components and second language (L2) outcomes among learners whose intensive L2 exposure began at different ages. Findings reveal that in adolescence immersion, a positive relationship occurs between L2 outcomes and an analytical dimension of language aptitude, whereas in early immersion, a…

Reviews results of an experiment comparing the comprehension and recall of four groups: those who watched a videotape without taking notes; those who took notes while watching; those who took notes on questions in advance; those who orally replied to questions while watching. Comprehension was higher in the interactive groups. (MJP)

Identifies hindsight bias as the tendency to exaggerate one's ability to have foreseen the outcome of an event after learning the outcome. Describes a class project where students predicted the verdict of the O. J. Simpson trial one week before the verdict and hypothesized a jury response a month later. (MJP)

Four levels of a learner controlled multimedia/interactive videodisc (IVD) science program were administered to 60 second graders: IVD lesson only, comprehension monitoring only, teacher scaffolding only, and teacher scaffolding with comprehension monitoring. The teacher scaffolding with comprehension monitoring group scored highest, indicating…

Explores the hypothesis that the background knowledge effect, that is, familiarity with the topic, that enhances reading comprehension in a foreign language occurs only between two thresholds. Findings indicate that a lower threshold may exist, whereas the existence of an upper threshold is an open question. (50 references) (Author/CK)

Addresses the accessibility of texts produced by the Overseas Development Administration. This research analyzes a corpus of texts and shows that factors making the texts difficult include poor linguistic structure, contextual structure, conceptual structure, and unclear operationalisation of the reader-writer relationship. (18 references)…

Thirty-seven college students with learning disabilities were given a reading comprehension task under the following conditions: (1) using an optical character recognition/speech synthesis system; (2) having the text read aloud by a human reader; or (3) reading silently without assistance. Findings indicated that the greater the disability, the…

A review of the research on developing reading comprehension skills in students with learning disabilities found strongest outcomes for teacher-led questioning and self-questioning strategies, text enhancement strategies, and strategies involving basic skills instruction and reinforcement. (DB)