A study was conducted to explore the generality of reconstructive processes of memory for social information. Sixty college students divided evenly into six experimental and control groups were asked to read one of two versions of a story: one in which a couple happily agreed not to have children, the other in which the man's desire to remain…

Two experiments using the same design and subjects drawn from the same populations tested two accounts of schema-directed text processing, the selective attention hypothesis that suggests readers identify text elements as important or unimportant on the basis of an engaged, operative, or subsuming schema; and the slot-filling hypothesis that…

In a study investigating the nature of questioning, a group of subjects with little relevant knowledge and a group with a great deal of relevant knowledge were asked to prepare a chocolate mousse. During the preparation, the subjects were allowed to ask any number of questions and each was answered immediately. Results showed that the number of…

A study compared the instructional strategies of semantic mapping and semantic feature analysis with a traditional contextual approach for vocabulary acquisition. Subjects, 36 fourth, fifth, and six grade classes, were taught a set of 15 target words in each of the three instructional conditions for each of 3 weeks. Classes were assessed at the…

This paper addresses practical Army problems in reading assessment from a theory base reflecting the most recent research on reading comprehension. Military and occupational research shows that reading proficiency is related to job performance. Reading assessment is a key issue in the Army due to changes in the reading ability levels of the Army…

A series of experiments investigated the role of prior knowledge in tasks involving the operation of equipment from written instructions. The experiments covered two situations. In the first, the prior knowledge was already possessed by the subjects before the experiments. The studies involved comprehension and memory of technical prose, expertise…

Contending that previous investigations into the efficacy of underlining as a study technique have yielded mixed results due to the specific experimental methodologies employed, a study addressed the issue by manipulating both the reading comprehension skills of students and the kind of information given to them about underlining. Specifically,…

An informal field study to design a system of beginning writing for the prefirst-grade child is presented in this paper, following a review of the literature. A series of questions are then raised regarding what letter form should be taught first, how letters should be grouped for instruction, and what verbal references should be used for…

Four readability formulas were analyzed to determine the reading grade equivalence of instructional materials at the middle grades and above: the Dale-Chall formula, the Gunning-Fog Index, the Flesch Reading Ease Formula, and the McLaughlin SMOG Grading. In addition, Spache and Wheeler/Smith formulas were analyzed for evaluating primary grade…

Agrues that the Reading Miscue Inventory (RMI) concepts are useful for analyzing oral reading errors made within the boundary set by Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) concepts.

Analyzes first grade children's perception of written word boundaries after a year of reading instruction, concluding that children have little idea what words are after their first year of instruction. (RB)

Tests syllabication rules on social studies tests and basals and compares findings with other research. (TO)

This study investigated the effects of the attitude of the reader toward women's changing role on the reader's response to literature that illuminates women's role. Twelve skilled readers, six male and six female high school seniors with I.Q.'s of 120 or above, were selected because their semantic differentials indicated that half favored women's…

This report describes four experiments on various aspects of memory for connected discourse. The first experiment dealt with preexperimental dispositions to respond to sentences and showed that people do come to experiments with biases; therefore, control of materials is necessary in this research area. The second experiment studied the…

Sequential relationships between Stroop color-word stimuli were explored in a random discrete-trials manual response design. Posttrial availability of an interfering response was indicated by a subsequent reduction of reaction time when that response became appropriate. Previous evidence for suppression of competing responses is probably…