This introduction to the special issue on reading comprehension in content areas notes the articles' emphasis on integration of research into practice, process orientation, development of metacognitive strategies, and the value of discussion. (DB)

Describes the procedures one teacher used to help students develop a love of reading and think about and respond to what they read. Outlines how students were provided with structure (questioning techniques), time (proceeding at their own rate), and choices (selecting their own reading material). Discusses student progress and program…

Fourth and fifth graders marked on a checklist the titles and authors of children's books which they recognized. This measure of exposure to print was correlated with children's growth in reading ability as measured by standardized tests. Individual differences in growth in reading were significantly related to the measure. (BC)

Investigates why some middle school students appear to be good decoders but have problems with reading comprehension. Shows that their listening comprehension was no better than their reading comprehension, and thus rather than needing further instruction in decoding, they require assistance in developing their general language and listening…

Describes "Effective Reading," a newly revised community college developmental reading course, which focuses on reading comprehension skills of predicting, confirming, and integrating; uses the direct teaching model of demonstration, guided practice, and independent practice; and is corequisite with an introductory sociology course. Reports…

Listening and reading comprehension tests were administered to 180 children in grades 3-8. A regression equation was derived and applied to listening comprehension scores of seven children with reading difficulties. The procedure was determined to be useful in predicting reading comprehension and attributing it to poor decoding, poor…

Examines the effectiveness of combining two cognitive strategies, self-questioning and prediction, for a range of students reading below grade level. Finds that the use of these combined strategies improved reading comprehension of both slightly and severely disabled middle school students. (SR)

Discusses the use of content area textbooks and indicates that content textbooks are difficult for students to understand because the books generally are not well written. Offers solutions for how to use content textbooks and illustrates how lessons can be created through the integration of tradebooks and through discussions in which critical…

A study of 78 women in Tilzapotla, a small Mexican town with an unusually strong commitment to education, examined decontextualized language and literacy skills related to oral and reading comprehension of health information and to speaking skills during a health interview. Length of schooling was related to most skills, but all measured skills…

A study investigated the English vocabulary knowledge of 324 first-year students at an Indonesian university. Results indicate that on average, students had some knowledge of 1226 English words, far less than the 3000-5000 word range widely considered a threshold level for independent reading of unsimplified texts. Only a small portion of students…

The Dyslexia Training Program, a remedial reading program derived from Orton-Gillingham methods, embodies principles of structured phonetic instruction, drill and repetition, and multisensory methodology. Following the two-year program, dyslexic students (N=22) demonstrated significantly higher reading recognition and comprehension than a control…

Presents an overview of the components of content-area reading instruction (word identification, vocabulary, and comprehension) and describes instructional strategies that can be used to teach middle and high school students with reading disabilities how to approach content-area reading. Tips for selecting textbooks are also included. (Author/CR)

Examines the effects of exposures to children's literature through reading aloud and an inferencing strategy on low-reading-ability fifth-grade readers' sense of story structure and reading comprehension. Uses an experimental/control group repeated measures design. Finds that this study is consistent with other research that indicates the…

Investigated the role of phonological and orthographic processing skills in second-language reading of 60 native-Farsi-speaking English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) graduate students. Three types of ESL reading variables were used: reading and comprehension, silent reading rate, and ability to recognize individual words. Efficiency in phonological…

Examined the effects of Bright Start, an early-education program for providing children in Israel with the cognitive tools for school learning, on first graders' cognitive performance and achievement tests in math and reading comprehension. Found improvements in the test group's performance over all measures. (JPB)