A study investigated what adults think about the nature of changes in reading ability across the life span. Subjects, 121 undergraduate students at two major midwestern universities and 24 non-faculty employees at one of these schools, were asked to list five or more skills which they thought were important for being a good reader at four…

Focusing on the process of reading comprehension, this book contains chapters on some central topics relevant to understanding the processes associated with comprehending text. The articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "Comprehension Processes: Introduction" (K. Rayner); (2) "The Role of Meaning in Word Recognition"…

This study hypothesized that altering a news story to conform to a more familiar structure might increase comprehension and recall. Subjects, 104 undergraduate students, completed a Media Use Survey, a questionnaire for collecting demographic information, the WIRE test, a strength of text schema measure, and a comprehension questionnaire. Students…

Broad literacy trends among elementary, high school, and college students can be determined from various reports from the National Assessment of Education Progress, standardized achievement scores, and the verbal scores on the SAT. When these scores are analyzed for the decade of the 1970s, one finds different trends for different age groups, with…

Reflecting recent widespread interest in schema theory, this bibliography is intended to assist anyone interested in how the topic relates to reading. The introduction defines schema theory as the study of generic knowledge structures--called schemata--which are composed of "slots" or "placeholders" for each component, and…

A study was conducted to investigate the reading comprehension and educationally related characteristics and relationships that describe the Navy's recruit population. The variable of primary interest was the recruit's reading comprehension grade level score; other variables were years of education, aptitude score, high school graduation status,…

A study examined the effects of (1) providing students with instruction in a "discourse-structure" reading and writing strategy on college freshmen's recall and comprehension of history textbook passages; and (2) this procedure on the quality of students' expository writing. Subjects, 126 college freshmen, randomly assigned to one of…

The Stanford Reading and Television Study was undertaken to research the relationship between children's television viewing and their acquisition of reading skills. This progress report outlines the design of the study, describes the nature of the data which were collected, and summarizes key analyses of the data. The results reported indicate a…

A study investigated the differences in comprehension among 54 second grade students of differing reading abilities who either did nor did not receive basal reading instruction with interspersed postquestions, using the same reading series. Two factors, entering reading level and use of interspersed postquestions, were combined factorially to form…

Fourteen college students read passages displayed on a cathode-ray tube as their eye movements were monitored in a study that examined (1) whether letters that lie in the center of vision are used earlier in the fixation than letters further to the right, (2) how soon after a stimulus event that event can affect eye movement control, and (3) how…

A study examined longitudinal differences in the academic achievement of economically advantaged and economically disadvantaged pupils of high, average, and low academic ability in grades 2 through 9. Data used were the 1982 and 1985 Stanford Achievement Test Reading Comprehension results of the Palm Beach County, Florida, school district. The…

A study was conducted to explore readers' ability to identify information of high and low importance. Specifically, the study explored (1) whether the ability to prioritize or structure information in texts was consonant with proficient reading, (2) whether the ability to prioritize information from texts was dependent upon the memory capacity…

A study investigated the effects of goal setting on children's self-efficacy and skillful performance during reading comprehension instruction. Subjects, 17 fourth graders and 16 fifth graders from one elementary school, had regularly received remedial reading comprehension instruction. Subjects were administered a pretest consisting of a…

A study was conducted to investigate the reading comprehension and educationally related characteristics and relationships that describe the Navy's recruit population. The variable of primary interest was the recruit's reading comprehension grade level score; other variables were years of education, aptitude score, high school graduation status,…

A study tested the hypothesis that the self-esteem of a group of six sixth graders would be raised through the employment of a bibliotherapeutic program. Self-esteem was measured before and after the program by the "Culture-Free Self-Esteem Inventory for Children Form A." The subjects, who were from low, average, and above average reading groups,…