Investigates main idea instruction in three basal reading series. Finds statistically significant differences in main idea instruction for the parameters "main idea task" and "acknowledgement of strategies mediating main idea task." Determines that basal reader materials rarely encourage students to monitor their main idea…

Finds that sentence combining practice may have enhanced cohesion knowledge and had a positive effect on general reading comprehension. (SR)

Finds that advance organizers and level of test anxiety had no effect on test performance of mildly handicapped high school students who took a learning test after viewing a film. (SR)

Investigates the effectiveness of explicit instruction in think aloud as a means to promote elementary students' comprehension monitoring abilities. Concludes that both think-aloud (TA) and a directed reading-thinking activity (DRTA) strategies are effective but that additional research is needed to determine their relative effectiveness. (SR)

Reviews models of reading performance as an organizing framework for understanding findings from empirical studies of text and reader factors. Reviews numerous empirical studies of text design and reader variables and their effects on comprehension. Aims to help readers understand this research and its implications in document design decisions.…

Compares the effectiveness of two approaches to decreasing user navigation problems in hypertext: providing maps, and constraining the hypertext structure. Finds that for learning details, linear formats should be retained; whereas for more global overall learning, a constrained structure is a good alternative. (SR)

Examines children's responses to nine works of realistic literature and film. Finds (1) between-text differences for stance and understanding; (2) book and film differences for stance but not for understanding; (3) most responses were written from an aesthetic stance; and (4) the use of an aesthetic stance is associated with significantly higher…

Investigates what reading skills college students use as they study. Finds differences in students' responses at the beginning and end of a semester in which they were enrolled in a college reading study skills class, including using questioning as a method, and using different study methods for different topics and different types of tests. (SR)

Finds that lexical level in a second language (L2) is a better predictor of reading in L2 that the learners' general ability, predicting certain failure (when the learner's lexical level is lower than 3,000 word families), or certain success (when the level is over 5,000). (SR)

Compares the reading of hearing-impaired and normally hearing children on several measures. Finds, in contrast to an earlier study, that the use of an associated strategy by the hearing impaired occurred only in response to isolated sentences. Concludes that the hearing impaired's reading is delayed in some respects but is not different. (SR)

Finds that adult listeners to tape recordings of books are highly educated people who do a great deal of professional and recreational reading and who listen to books on tape for information and enjoyment while they are engaged in activities that require little concentration. (SR)

Examines the effects of prior topic knowledge and vocabulary knowledge on tenth graders' recall of different aspects of passage content in a magazine article about a baseball ceremony. Finds that domain knowledge and vocabulary have independent effects on comprehension and that these effects are on what is comprehended as well as how much is…

Analyzes the conversation of sixth grade children in literature response groups. Finds and describes two distinctive gendered styles of talk about literature, the predominate female mode of response being the "discourse of feeling," and the predominate male mode of response being the "discourse of action." Discusses pedagogy…

Reanalyzes data from a previous study to focus on the relationships among measures of use of metacognitive strategies and measures of reading comprehension. Finds no relationship prior to treatment between the use of metacognitive strategies and performance on a standardized test's measure of reading comprehension. (RS)

Examines the conscious and unconscious reading connections that third grade children made when they wrote fairy tales after spending six weeks studying fairy tales. Finds that students make intertextual links and that students internalized the rhythm, cadence, and sentence structure of fairy tales. (PRA)