This curriculum was compiled to serve as a guide, review, or supplement to the programmed materials currently in use in the Adult Basic Education Program sponsored by the University of Arkansas. The criterion for the materials selected was their ease of adaptability to a job-oriented educational approach. The document is divided into the following…

This paper describes the results of an effort to apply a classification system, developed by the Human Resources Research Office (George Washington University), to a set of terminal objectives in reading. The classification system contained five factors, each factor embracing three levels. Some 312 terminal objectives (and 766 approximations) were…

Following up on the previous year's study of first graders, this report describes a study of intervention at the second grade level in 73 North York, Ontario, public schools. Post-test data from the end of the first grade year were used to identify 417 pupils in need of special assistance in second grade. Post-testing was conducted near the end of…

Indicates that low-reading ability students of teachers trained how to make decisions about when and how to explain the mental processing associated with using reading skills as strategies were more aware of lesson content and of the need to be strategic when reading and scored better on several measures of reading achievement than did students of…

Reading comprehension was compared in 20 adult illiterates, 20 low-achieving students in grade two, and 21 low achievers in grade four. Results indicated similar processing difficulties in all three groups. Readers were weak in constructing meaning beyond a clause unit, and did not differentiate processing for narrative versus expository material.…

Summarizes recent research in reading and developmental psychology. Studies on schema theory and metacognition, and cognitive styles are described, and their implications for school library media programs and teaching critical thinking are discussed. (EM)

Describes the Directed Reading-Writing Activity (DRWA) as a framework that helps high school students write about the information they acquire through reading. Discusses how the DRWA's three steps--preparation, involvement, and reaction--extends the thought processes associated with reading comprehension into effective writing. (AEW)

Investigation of the simultaneous effects of and interaction between both culture-specific content schemata and formal schemata on English as a second language reading comprehension revealed that familiar content and rhetorical form yielded good reading comprehension. Results for "mixed" conditions indicated that content schemata affected reading…

Much research in second language reading uses a free written recall task to measure comprehension. The significance of differences in research design is analyzed. Sixteen groups of college Spanish students (N=20 each group) were given a recall task (in appendix). Research variables, including level of study, language of recall, and pre-reading…

Studies the effects of two comprehension training methods (one based on imagery and inferencing, the other based on text structure) on various aspects of third and fifth graders' reading performance. Results indicate that neither method had a measurable impact on reading comprehension nor on metacognitive knowledge of the reading process. (RS)

Answers of undergraduate Brazilian English as a foreign language students (N=40) to an open-ended and a multiple-choice reading comprehension test revealed that three prereading activities (pictorial context, vocabulary preteaching, and prequestioning) resulted in higher reading comprehension. (Author/CB)

More than 1,500 high school foreign language students were tested for comprehension of authentic texts. First- through fifth-year French, German, and Spanish students read texts of the types mentioned in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines at the intermediate and intermediate high levels. All students captured some meaning from each of the texts.…

Describes various activities designed for use in the reading classroom, including (1) cooperative learning activities; (2) reading and writing activities; (3) ways to improve comprehension; and (4) ways to encourage independent reading. (FL)

Investigates the relationship of out-of-school activities to reading achievement. Finds a wide variation between children in amount of out-of-school reading. Concludes that reading books was the out-of-school activity that had the strongest association with reading proficiency, but that on most days most subjects did little or no book reading. (MM)

Indicates that use of two microcomputer word recognition programs led to substantial increases in word recognition/decoding skills and to substantial improvements in comprehension at the word and proposition/sentence level, but to no improvement at the passage level. (NKA)