Distinguishing between interpretive and formal models of discourse processing and between qualitative and quantitative research, this paper argues that formal models are the analogues of interpretive models, and that the two are complementary. It observes that interpretive models of reading are being increasingly derived from qualitative research…

The report discusses speech processes in reading by critically considering recent available evidence and by proposing a general model of speech processes. Stating that much work has been guided by the question of whether speech recoding precedes lexical access, the report proposes that a richer understanding of speech processes in reading must…

This bibliography contains 35 annotations on resources in the ERIC database (ranging from 1982 to 1988) dealing with strategies to help dyslexic students. The bibliography is arranged into three sections: the first section provides an overview of dyslexia, the second section contains several citations on instructional strategies that can be used…

Metalinguistic cognition is the ability to think about language, to comment on it, to produce it, to comprehend it, and to manipulate language as an object with many identifiable and functional parts. It appears that metalinguistic skill development is related to cognitive development and is dependent on metalinguistic awareness which runs…

This paper takes a critical look at the Commission on Reading report, "Becoming a Nation of Readers," to suggest some directions for future research. The paper analyzes some of the general statements made in the report and focuses in depth on three issues: motivation and reading, comprehension instruction, and emergent literacy. The…

To investigate the relationship between a kindergartner's prior experience with print and the child's scores on Marie Clay's Concepts About Print Test, a study examined 23 kindergarten students from an upper middle class neighborhood. A 27-item questionnaire was given to parents at the beginning of the school year, asking what their children knew…

A study examined fourth grade students' written definitions to determine if definitions or aspects of definitions were schematized by the students. Subjects, 89 students from several Midwestern suburban school districts and 15 inservice and preservice teachers enrolled at a nearby college, were asked to write definitions of 16 words, four each of…

A study examined: (1) whether a relationship exists between self-concept relating to reading and reading performance of school children in grades three and four; and (2) whether it is possible to identify the four types of self-concept proposed by M. Levesque and derived from Staats Paradigmatic Behaviorism (positive-realistic,…

Noting that the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI) has been involved in research on reading assessment in the Army from both practical and theoretical perspectives, this paper addresses practical Army problems in reading assessment from a theory base that reflects the most recent and most sound…

Semantic priming is the process by which a subject performing a lexical decision task is prepared for a target word through the presentation of a semantically related word. Repetition of a given word at specific intervals is one form of priming that has been shown to reduce subject reaction time in word recognition tasks. A study was conducted to…

To determine the educationally related characteristics and relationships among selected variables that describe the United States Navy's recruit population, data were obtained on 84,123 recruits who entered the Navy between June 1981 and May 1982. Data were obtained from the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Comprehension Test and the Armed Forces…

A study tested a theory of inferencing strategies. Subjects were 40 sixth grade students of average intelligence from a large Western Canadian city who were divided according to reading proficiency and background knowledge. Six passages, three familiar to the students and three unfamiliar to them, were written by the researcher in such a manner…

Two studies using the same texts and procedures but different experimental designs (1) evaluated an instrument designed to identify children who overrely on their prior knowledge in the interpretation of written text, and (2) investigated how degree of congruency of information interacts with degree of explicitness and level of staging to affect…

The relationship was explored between the ability to understand nonverbal metaphoric similarity and the ability to produce verbal metaphors to talk about that similarity. Subjects, 45 college students, were shown filmed scenes that depicted both metaphoric and literal similarity. Half of the scenes were of stationary objects and half of moving…

To ensure that the essential job-related reading materials for nonrated United States Navy personnel were not beyond their reading capabilities, a study was undertaken to determine the readability levels of a representative sample of essential Navy job-related materials. The criteria for selecting material were that it be narrative text and that…