Presents the results of a study suggesting that economic knowledge, whether measured by a general score or knowledge of a particular issue, is the most consistent and influential factor affecting public opinion. Surveyed a broad range of participants concerning five complex issues of economic policy. Includes questions, tables, and statistics.…

Examines the differences in effectiveness of three types of dictionaries--monolingual, bilingual, and "bilingualised" in the comprehension and production of new words by learners of English as a foreign language. The study tested participants on the comprehension of target words and on their ability to use these words in their own sentences. (16…

Reports on a study that investigated possible effects of visual information on non-music students' cognitive responses to music. One group rated the affective response of musical excerpts from the film "Fantasia" without the accompanying video while another rated the excerpts with the video. Reveals little significant difference between…

Presented is the extent to which pupils of different ages tend to confuse scientific and everyday meanings of "Law" and "Conservation." The concepts of resource economy, environmental concern, and the law of conservation of energy are discussed in terms of potential teaching difficulties. (KR)

Discusses subvocalization and other ways in which people read silently. Comments on authorial voice and offers ways to experiment with creative reading aloud. Notes how the proliferation of advertising, the media "explosion," and the influence of modernism in literature has changed the fundamental sense of what reading is and how to do…

Investigates how children represent meaning in their response to stories through listening, speaking, reading, drawing, and writing. Finds no one particular language process to be exclusively used by children to convey meaning in response to story. Discovers sequential and simultaneous linkage patterns of language process modality. (KEH)

Teachers and students must build semantic connections between words of the text and already familiar ways of speaking, integrating the formal language of the subject into their own ways of speaking. This article demonstrates how classroom dialogue can help make textbook language part of the language of the students. (IAH)

Describes an informal inventory that gives underprepared college freshmen the opportunity to express their own perceptions of their reading needs and interests. Finds that students are most concerned with reading rate. Suggests that speed-reading activities play to students' interests while at the same time giving practice in comprehension skills.…

Analyzes transcripts of four reading lessons based on the Kamehameha Reading Program (emphasizing discussion and oral language within group reading lessons) given to three low-ability second grade readers. Identifies six components important to reading success, including contextual-based lessons, minimal skills instruction, and active quests for…

Discussion of text segmenting and comprehension highlights a study of elementary students in Australia that tested two hypotheses, one concerning reading abilities and one concerning information processing skills involved in syntactic analysis. Tests that measured vocabulary, comprehension, and processing skills are described, results are…

Explores how several kinds of metadiscourse that convey interpersonal meanings affect readers. Describes results of an immediate recall test given on two informative paragraphs which contained some modality markers. Discusses possible roles of modality markers in discourse processes. (KEH)

Hypothesizes that typographic cues structured according to a defined set of common attributes within textbooks enable readers to discriminate between various levels of information and to make generalizations about the information contained in each level. Proposes a method of identifying and ranking categories of information. (KEH)

A method is presented for using a restricted latent class model--a binary skills model--to determine skills required by a set of test items. Results from the method's application to reading achievement data for about 63,000 fourth graders indicate that the model offers useful information on test structure and examinee ability. (TJH)

Discusses the need to modify visual media for hearing-impaired students and describes a study of college students that examined the effects of modifying captions and providing supplementary instruction on the comprehension of a technical film. Effects of instruction, levels of captioning, test types, and reading ability are examined. (25…

Attempts to answer the question whether indentifiably separate levels of reading comprehension exist by judgmentally using 9 teachers at the University of Lancaster and empirically using 100 students from Bombay university. (Author/VWL)