Studies the effect on reading comprehension of a computer system. Finds that the adolescent students gained in reading comprehension across both training modes, but the efficacy of DECtalk together with on-line explanations was found with only two prose passages and mainly with above average readers. Discusses results in the context of situated…

Examined whether the teacher-guided and student-independent practice and evaluation tasks recommended in basal teachers' manuals promote the application of two reading comprehension skills (main idea and cause-effect). Findings suggest that recommended basal tasks are not likely to promote the development of these skills. (MM)

Analyzed whether variations in amount and type of linguistic simplification would create differences in the comprehension levels of Jordanian college students studying English. Students read different versions of a text and completed an achievement test. Simplification positively affected students' reading comprehension. The type, not amount, of…

This replication study demonstrated that Jordanian college students studying English recognized the meanings of new words and built associations between them after comprehension-focused extensive reading. Controlled book-length reading generated more incidental word learning and a higher pickup rate than shorter tasks. Word frequency did not make…

Comparison of 17 academically gifted and average intermediate grade students on the use of elaborative interrogation to improve reading comprehension found that gifted children had greater recall than average students prior to and one week after training, despite equivalent levels of strategy use. Results suggest the optimal level of strategy use…

This interview with Dr. Candace Bos, a professor of special education at the University of Arizona, discusses the need for informed, flexible teaching when working with students with learning disabilities, and the importance of addressing phonological awareness, decoding and fluency, comprehension, and content area reading. (CR)

Describes procedures for teaching Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), in which students of mixed reading and achievement levels work in small, cooperative groups to assist one another in applying reading strategies to facilitate their comprehension of content-area text. Discusses whole-class instruction of CSR strategies, implementing CSR in…

Presents a review of the literature on oral reading fluency. Offers a comprehensive picture of factors associated with fluency development by clarifying and refining the variant ways researchers have interpreted the fluency construct. Recommends research-based instructional principles that foster fluency development; examines approaches used to…

Puts forth Louise Rosenblatt's 1938 Reader-Response Theory as a dominant teaching approach in English education, with Rosenblatt's influence readily apparent in contemporary research. Asserts that English professors today can work the magic of the literary experience through the use of the Reader-Response Theory in the teaching of literature.…

Examines fourth- and sixth-grade children's strategies (using think-aloud protocols or silent reading) for processing informational text. Finds that silent readers engaged in more physical backtracking to previously-read sentences, while think-aloud protocol processing tended to focus on the local, sentence level. Illustrates complex relations…

Argues that pictures illustrating the written narrative facilitate the decoding process for children learning English as a second language (ESL). Describes a study analyzing the text-image relations in picture books used for ESL students. Provides questions ESL teachers can use to develop criteria for assessing the function of visual images in…

Describes a comprehension-enhancement strategy for social studies reading, the PEP (Person, Event, Place) Road Map Instructional Framework, that can help middle school students with reading difficulties. The implementation of the PEP Road Map strategies with 27 minority-group students with learning disabilities resulted in academically significant…

Two studies examined individual differences in 7- to 10-year-olds' contextual facilitation. Findings indicated that poor readers showed more contextual facilitation than good readers but the relative context benefit was greater for good readers. Comprehension was a better predictor of contextual facilitation that decoding. Dyslexics showed greater…

Examines how the role of questions in literacy instruction has always been strong, whether requiring answers involving rote memory or the activation of higher level critical thinking processes. Presents a six-step strategy for questioning followed by a field-tested group of fifth graders' responses to each step. (SC)

Describes an investigation of the effects of logical connectives and paragraph heads on reading comprehension among 577 Hong Kong secondary students learning English as a Second Language. An English reading comprehension test was used to allocate subjects into one of the three performance groups: High, medium, and low. (Author/VWL)