A study shows that word shape information, when combined with knowledge of the syntactic and semantic structure of the passage being read, more often than not specifies unique words among all of the alternative high frequency words of English. (MKM)

Describes a study designed to determine the order of introduction of the common phoneme-grapheme correspondences needed for use in decoding written words in the elementary grades. Includes tables showing the order of introduction of vowel and diphthong phonemes and of consonant phonemes, and presents a teaching hierarchy for introduction of…

Reports that an approach in which college students enacted skits developed around vocabulary words proved more effective than a traditional approach to teaching vocabulary. (MKM)

Reports on a study that demonstrated that college students are flexible in their reading and readily adjust their reading rates in accordance with the payoffs of a task. In particular, propositions expressing case relations were more likely to be retained than those expressing descriptive information. (HOD)

Describes a study in which investigators attempted to provide an example for approaching vocabulary development from a theoretical basis and tried to provide empirical support for some techniques presently used in teaching word meanings. (Author/HOD)

Responds to doubts raised in the preceding article about the author's readability graph. Defends the orthodoxy of the procedures used to develop the graph and presents data showing that it correlates quite well with the other formulas on first- and second-grade materials and is just a little high on third- grade materials. (ET)

Proposes a research design for estimating for a given population the extent to which items with high context dependence (CD) measure a construct that is independent from that measured by items with low CD, shows how this design can be used empirically to compare the utility of alternate CD indices, and provides findings of two studies. (HOD)

Suggests the need for a model of reading in which the use of text data and prior knowledge structures in story understanding varies according to the complexity of the comprehension task, the familiarity of the text, and the level of understanding required of the reader. (HOD)

Comprehension monitoring was investigated by asking college students to read and answer probed recall questions about passages that contained intentionally introduced confusions. Subjects failed to report a large number of the confusions and less than one quarter of the confusions were noticed during reading. (HOD)

Reports on a study that investigated ninth-grade students' use of a reading strategy that focused on following the organizational structure of text to determine what is important to remember. Texts were organized with problem/solution or comparison structures and the structure strategy appeared to be effective for retrieval. (MKM)

Examines whether (1) the belief of reading educators that beginning reading methods do not significantly differ is correct; (2) differences exist among methods for teaching older readers and for remediating disabled readers; and (3) instructional methods differ across subject type, treatment characteristics, different achievement measures, and…

Brief answers are provided to 50 questions concerning basic reading research and how a parent can help teach reading. (SJL)

Results of a study using the keyword method of vocabulary learning showed increased comprehension of English vocabulary in context, as well as usage of that vocabulary in a novel context. (MKM)

Considers some research evidence, and extracts from it strategies and techniques that could profitably be used in the classroom. (HOD)

Details a study that asked both elementary school students and teachers to state the most important reasons for reading. Reports that both students and teachers gave gaining knowledge as the most important reason for reading. (FL)