Through reflections upon the ideas and events that have shaped current views about reading comprehension and its teaching, this paper characterizes patterns of development in three related domains: theory and research about basic processes in reading comprehension, research about reading comprehension instruction, and practices in teaching reading…

A study investigated the effects of a spatial adjunct aid--maps--upon probed comprehension and free recall with respect to a text in which map-related information (macropropositions) could be clearly distinguished from more abstract information (micropropositions). Forty-eight tenth grade students were randomly assigned to either a control group…

Intended for elementary school reading teachers, this booklet offers insight into the nature of comprehension and suggestions for enhancing children's comprehension skills. The first chapter discusses trends in comprehension research, and several specific points about the nature of comprehension and how it can best be taught. The second chapter…

A study was conducted to identify the contributions of both prior knowledge and prereading vocabulary instruction to passage comprehension. In addition, semantic mapping and semantic feature analysis--instructional strategies that build upon students' prior knowledge--were compared with a modified basal approach for effectiveness as prereading…

A study was conducted to investigate reading comprehension and educationally related variables--such as years of education, aptitude score, high school graduation status, and quarter of entry into the service--that describe United States Navy recruits. Data were obtained from computer managed instruction (CMI) reports issued quarterly, on…

Undergraduate students of English for Science and Technology (EST) are confronted, in their English textbooks, with a variety of rhetorical forms intended to convey a variety of information, including specialized rhetorics of definition, classification, and argumentation. The rhetorical form of EST argumentation is the organization of written…

Intended to make teachers aware of various tactics that will move students toward strategies for independent learning, this paper describes several work-study skills, which--once mastered--can be integrated into the set of tactics the life-long learner might use in his or her independent mastery of text and lecture. The first part of the paper…

A computer lesson entitled "Aux Jeux Olympiques" (To the Olympic Games) simulates an ongoing situational dialog between the French student and the PLATO computer system. It offers an international setting for functional learning exercises focusing on students' understanding and use of comparative constructions, selected verbs, and other linguistic…

Evaluated was the teaching effectiveness of the Trimodal Programed Instruction in Reading with nine second, third, and fourth grade students who were not progressing in elementary school reading programs even with remediation. (MC)

This study investigated the effectiveness of teaching specific rather than global comprehension skills; the correlations among sex, intelligence level, and comprehension gain when taught global or specific comprehension skills; and the correlations between the factors of intelligence, comprehension, and vocabulary without regard for the teaching…

This is the final report on a research project that measured the effect of reading rate on accuracy and the efficiency of reading comprehension. At the outset of the project, existing research data were integrated into a comprehensive account called a "rauding theory," which interrelates reading ability, passage difficulty, reading time,…

Instruction that promotes the awareness and use of contextual aids in reading may be achieved by use of the cloze procedure in the classroom; training with the cloze procedure helps to focus the attention of the student on the conceptual aspect of reading rather than on the perceptual, and may be used from the primary grades through college. This…

The altercue continuum is a theoretical arrangement of oral reading responses which deviate from the expected responses, arranged according to their relationship to reading comprehension. Elements from miscue research, including phoneme-grapheme correspondence, serve as principles for organizing altercue types according to comprehension. Semantic…

In order to teach in the content area, a teacher must accept five basic premises: (1) Reading in the content field is part of the total school program. (2) All teachers are responsible for helping students read the text in a specific subject. (3) The focus of teaching is changed from merely teaching content to how to read and understand the…

Three treatment groups were used to examine the effects on general reading comprehension of teaching and testing four subskills related to the identification of the main idea in prose materials. Subjects were 157 tenth-grade students. Besides a control group, two experimental approaches were used, consisting of subjects who were both taught four…