Evidence from existing literature suggests that the decoding and reading comprehension skills of poor readers can be improved by assisting them to read material that is too difficult for them to read by themselves--especially when the reading experiences are focused on the content of the material rather than on the words. A study examined the…

This study examined how instruction that encourages critical thinking about what has been read can lead to incorporated knowledge that can be retrieved and applied to other related settings. Case-based learning (an instructional method long used with graduate business, law, and medical students) is one method that can be used to foster critical…

A study explored how writers with extensive experience and learning in an academic discipline used both topical and rhetorical knowledge to construct synthesis essays. Subjects, 20 psychology graduate students and 20 business graduate students, wrote synthesis essays on either the topics of "supply-side economics" or "rehearsal in…

Intended to help professionals remain knowledgeable about current research in reading and to serve as a relatively accessible bibliographic source of research on a specific topic, this annual report summarizes approximately 800 reading research reports identified between July 1, 1985, and June 30, 1986. The summaries are arranged into six major…

An integrated reading program was developed and implemented to raise reading comprehension levels and attitudes toward reading in two groups of urban comprehensive high school students. A targeted group of 10th-grade English 2 Regular and English 2 Skills students was established for the program with the objective to reduce reading deficits that…

A study investigated the results of the use of Form E (Vocabulary and Comprehension subtests) of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT) with six successive cohorts of freshmen entering a midwestern state university. The purpose of the study was to determine the relationships existing between NDRT scores and other indicators of academic success such…

A study examined whether or not high school teachers could name or list the reading skills needed by their students. The three skills categories were comprehending expository text, understanding content area vocabulary, and applying word analysis skills. The questions used to elicit information from teachers were (1) What must students do to…

A study examined whether teaching a specific reading strategy could improve the reading comprehension and memory of young (18 to 32) and older (62 and older) high school educated adults with average to high vocabulary test scores. The "plan strategy" was identified through an examination of what more than 1,000 adults wrote down as they…

Using two original children's books and adaptations of these books created by basal reader publishers, a study investigated (1) whether children prefer original, unadapted stories that may have longer sentences and more vocabulary items than are permitted by readability formulas for their grade level, or the adaptations of those stories, which…

Current issues in the literature on the testing of linguistic and communicative proficiency are reviewed and discussed in relation to reading comprehension testing. Several theoretical issues in language testing are discussed, including testing purposes and test validity. Areas of concern regarding methods of testing reading comprehension are then…

Narrowly defining reading as a list of skills dealing with word attack and letter sounds is potentially crippling to readers, because it limits the instruction provided by those who write literature--authors, who, in creating text, create meaning. The nature of reading instruction should not structure the ways human beings come to deal with…

A study investigated whether high school students employ different study strategies in different content areas and whether their study strategy selections are influenced by the degree to which they are familiar with these topics. Subjects, 79 high school juniors, read one familiar and one unfamiliar passage from both history and chemistry…

A study examined children's comprehension of and preferences for basal reader stories with differing levels of coherence. The subjects were 58 second grade students who each read orally three stories judged to differ substantially on the number of incoherences in the text. Incoherences were defined as confusing referents, unclear relationships…

Although critics persist in attacks on the teaching profession in general and the teaching of reading in particular, both elementary and secondary school reading scores have increased steadily over the past three decades. Even Black and Hispanic students (who still score below the averages for White students tested) have made sizeable gains in…

The graphemic and functional distribution of Chinese punctuation markers are outlined, and the implications of Chinese punctuation practices for second language instruction are discussed. Three kinds of Chinese punctuation markers are described: those graphically unique to Chinese, those written and used in the same manner in both Chinese and…