B. J. F. Meyer's approach to prose analysis is utilized in this paper to examine differences in learning and memory of text by readers across the adult lifespan. The analysis system is described briefly and compared to other approaches. Several studies are then summarized that employ this hierarchical analysis system to study learner…

AN ADDRESS FOR CLASSROOM TEACHERS IS PRESENTED WHICH CONSIDERS THE NATURE OF COMPREHENSION AND THE PROCESSES INVOLVED IN TEACHING CHILDREN TO COMPREHEND WHAT THEY READ. A REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH ON COMPREHENSION SINCE 1960 IS GIVEN. THE FOLLOWING TOPICS ARE DISCUSSED--THE PROCESS OF COMPREHENDING, THE KINDS OF COMPREHENSION, THE RELATIONSHIP…

SIXTY URBAN, MIDDLE-CLASS, FOURTH-GRADE TEACHERS IN THE SOUTHWEST WERE GIVEN THE EDWARDS PERSONAL PREFERENCE SCHEDULE (EPPS) AS A MEASURE OF PERSONALITY. THEIR CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR WAS THEN RECORDED ON A TEACHER OBSERVATION PERSONALITY SCHEDULE REFLECTING EDWARDS' DEFINITIONS OF HIS NEEDS FOR ACHIEVEMENT, ABASEMENT, AFFILIATION, DOMINANCE, CHANGE,…

A study involving students in two English classes and two algebra classes at the College of Alameda was conducted to assess the correlation between a student's grade achievement and his/her ability to read at the level at which the course text was written. The Fry Readability Scale was used to determine the reading level of the course texts and…

Considerable attention has been devoted in recent years to theories of text comprehension and recall that stress the importance of preexisting knowledge structures or schemata. While the valuable contribution such research has made to the understanding of the reading process and the various disabilities that often attend its acquisition must be…

Hartford, Connecticut's Intensive Reading Instructional Teams (IRIT) were designed to improve achievement levels of elementary pupils deficient in basic language and reading skills. In 1978-1979, 683 students in grades two through six received instruction in reading vocabulary and comprehension and in decoding. This report updates and expands an…

This paper provides a brief survey of current theory concerning reading comprehension and suggests that the role of the reader's knowledge has been largely neglected. Factors that influence the assessment of information or idea gain are the nature of the learner, the nature of the material, the nature of the purposes for reading, and the means…

The process of acquiring knowledge from texts is considered from two perspectives: the learning of the individual facts in the text, and the integration of the facts into a coherent representation reflecting relations among the facts. The former process is presumed to depend on the linguistics content of the text, while the latter process depends…

To investigate the applicability of schema-theoretic notions to young children's comprehension of textually explicit and inferrable information, slightly above-average second grade readers with strong and weak schemata for knowledge about spiders read a passage about spiders and answered wh-questions tapping both explicitly stated information and…

The effects of content schemata, embodying the reader's existing knowledge about a topic, on reading comprehension were examined in two experiments in which high school and college students were instructed to take a distinctive point of view while reading and recalling a story. Perspectives assigned before reading, shortly after reading, and long…

Three studies were conducted as part of a series designed to identify the subskills of word identification that correlate most highly with reading comprehension and to examine various methods of assessing these subskills. In the first study, the prototype of a decoding (word identification) test was administered to 282 first, third, and fifth…

This publication is designed to acquaint both mathematics teachers and reading specialists with some of the skills students need to read mathematics effectively and to provide sample activities that may be used as a part of mathematics instruction to help students develop these skills. Topics covered include: Specialized Vocabulary and Symbols,…

The relationship between writing and reading processes can be analyzed from several contextual perspectives. The contextual perspectives may be linguistic, social, schematic, or strategic. While the writer follows several steps in getting meaning into print, the reader may not be able to reverse perfectly these steps and get meaning from print.…

The central feature of language is symbolic meaning, and the act of reading is a part of the symbolic process that characterizes human life. Meaning occurs as a result of interpretation in a context, not as a result of response or reaction. Signs have a literal meaning in a specific context, while symbols have a figurative meaning in an implicit…

The inservice teacher education course described is designed for elementary school teachers seeking to improve their teaching skills in diagnostic reading. The scope and sequencing of topics in the course are outlined. The activities and resources involved in using course materials are described and ordering information is provided. A critique of…