Examines undergraduate students' imaginative processes (i.e., spontaneous imagery and emotional response) to newspaper articles. Finds that, as in previous studies with literary texts and feature journalism articles, imagery and affective responses (i.e., emotional response and story interest) were moderately to strongly related. Finds that both…

Compares disabled readers and normal beginning readers on requesting help in the form of speech feedback during computer-based word reading. Finds that both disabled readers and beginners were not sensitive to word difficulty, and disabled readers remained dependent on the speech feedback. Discusses how profits of the procedures related to word…

Examines reading and spelling errors made by children learning Arabic within a developmental framework. Finds that errors in reading and spelling persisted throughout primary school, pointing to the difficulties involved in mastering the Arabic written language. Notes that misreadings involved mainly diacritics whereas misspellings were related to…

Compares the effects of utilizing children's books incorporated into a themed literature unit with the effects of using a textbook in an elementary social studies class. Finds that students taught using the themed unit showed significant gains compared to the group taught with the textbook and that the subjects using the themed unit reacted…

Compares the effectiveness of a traditional vocabulary instruction unit with an alternative unit which applied the concepts of procedural and conditional knowledge to secondary students' word learning. Discusses key characteristics that made the alternative unit successful. (SR)

Finds that the writing system and the reading system share many of the same orthographic, phonological, and working memory subprocesses but that the patterns of concurrent relationship between these subprocesses and writing and between these subprocesses and reading differ. Suggests that writing and reading draw upon the same as well as unique…

Presents a case study of the effectiveness of a combination of a family literacy home intervention program with one-on-one intense tutoring for nonreading families. Notes that the family began to make positive changes in their reading environment, attitudes, and interactions which had a positive effect on their child's reading progress at school.…

Investigates the relationship between the relative difficulty of passages and the number of unknown words in passages. Finds little support for the theory that free reading results in large vocabulary growth. Calls into question the practice of devoting large amounts of classroom time to free reading if the purpose is to increase vocabulary or…

Provides independent analysis of the extant evaluations of Reading Recovery. Finds that students make greater than expected gains in reading, effects comparable to those accomplished by other effective educational interventions; and that programs are less effective in maintaining student gains and more costly than has been claimed. Offers…

Presents the responses of several well-known scholars--David Bloome, Joanne M. Golden, Carol D. Lee, Susan Hynds, Michael Pressley, and Timothy Shanahan--to Alan C. Purves's criticism of educational research in the English language arts for its redundancy, its staleness, its reliance on jargon and labels, and its flawed methodology. (TB)

Presents data collected from an assessment of the reading skills of 19 elementary students diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder. Offers recommendations for interventions based on the results of the assessment. Discusses teaching techniques and strategies that address the specific reading deficits reflected in the data. (SR)

Finds overwhelmingly positive attitudes in two public school faculties toward the change of their curriculum to include the whole language philosophy--students were motivated, teachers were renewed with a positive attitude, and students exhibited an air of confidence and security concerning their performance. (SR)

Applies an aesthetic instrument to first-grade students' pictorial/oral and written responses to determine if significant aesthetic growth was demonstrated in responses collected over a three-month period. Compares students' written growth to growth demonstrated in pictorial/oral responses. Finds that pictorial and oral responses can serve as…

Investigates how discussion influences young children's preferences for science texts. Finds that discussion can result in the preference for a science text that students may initially find of limited interest or even unappealing. (SR)

Explores the relationship between pragmatics and reading from a perspective of "learning to read" in order to "read to learn." Second language reading is discussed in terms of cognitive processing and research on content and formal schemata; cognitive processing and readers' cognitive strategies and metacognition; and the reading-writing…