A Spanish course is described in which reading ability was gained as a preliminary to a conventional first-year language course. Through passive learning, recognition of vocabulary and grammatical structure was achieved, and correct pronunciation and writing drills reinforced learning. Good results were obtained in the subsequent conventional…

Reviews reports of the use of taped books and reading materials with students as a method of reading instruction. Also suggests related techniques such as choral reading, sustained silent reading, and the neurological impress method. (MKM)

Discusses a study that compared the use of interpretive dramatics activities to basal reader workbooks for developing the comprehension skills of recognition and recall of details, sequencing of events, and generalizing the main idea. (JM)

Describes a third-year English test for fifth graders, with examples (and discussion) in the areas of listening comprehension, answering questions, asking questions, speaking about a series of pictures, reading comprehension, sentence conversion and letter writing. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A description of a French course given in Mexico to mathematics teachers. The object was to enable them to read primary, untranslated sources as quickly as possible. The general learning objectives, characteristics of students and teachers, methods, and a complete sample lesson plan are given. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Reviews research relevant to understanding the conditions in which elaborative inferences are made, with a particular concern for the implications for schema-theoretic notions of comprehension. (FL)

Reports a study indicating that summarization training of sixth-grade students improved recall of major but not minor information on a studying task and that such training is an effective tool for improving reading and studying skills. Includes ways to improve summarization instruction for children of this age group. (HTH)

Examines how students make and revise meaning when writing in purposeful, informal ways about their interpretation of literary texts. Also reveals five ways in which students develop their understanding of literature through writing. Suggests a mutually enriching reading-writing process of interpretation. (AEW)

Focuses on the underlying elements in the reading comprehension process that better distinguish its developmental phases. Offers suggestions for the acquisition of strategies pertaining to textual organization that, together with proposed activities for comprehension, contribute to the formation and consolidation of reading habits. Includes…

Reviews the literature relevant to the subject of comprehension monitoring and offers ideas from the reading research for how students can improve their comprehension and how teachers can tell if students understand what they read. (JC)

Describes a basic reading course designed to meet the specific needs of the weakest basic writers enrolled in a large midwestern university with an open admissions policy. Shows how the developmental course improved the students' reading comprehension so they could better understand the texts they would encounter in college courses. (SKC)

Provides information on how to use newspaper comic strips with reluctant, older disabled readers because the visual nature of the comics helps reading comprehension. Activity types include: (1) categorizing; (2) finding main ideas; (3) comparing; (4) determining cause-effect relationships; and (5) predicting outcomes. (SKC)

Among techniques which can be used by foreign language teachers to help learners use multiple-choice tests (after reading a text) to become better readers are: have students attempt to answer questions before reading the text; rearrange the order of the questions; and have students make up multiple choice questions. (CB)

Examples are presented of worksheets designed to help students prepare for discussions of literature in terms of the language, plot, and literary aspects of a particular work. All examples are from an introductory course in German literature. Benefits of using such worksheets include increased students comprehension and class participation. (LMO)

Reports two studies of comprehensible and memorable expository writing. Finds that Time-Life editors' revisions of a high school history text improved eleventh grade students' recall, while revisions made by text linguists and composition instructors did not. But given latitude to change content, all editors' revisions improved recall. (RAE)