Reviews physical and mental factors that influence the reading habits of older Americans. Discusses their motivations for reading, reading programs for institutionalized elders, ways to encourage older people to use the public library, and other ways to encourage older people to read. (SKC)

Contends that the addition of the microcomputer as a learning tool may enhance student learning and increase teacher effectiveness using the direct instruction approach. Discusses patterns associated with teacher effectiveness, practical application of the direct instruction model, and the incorporation of computer assisted instruction into a…

Describes a college developmental reading laboratory model using peer tutors to provide training in comprehension study skills. Reports the results of a study evaluating the impact of training on student performance from the perspective of the participants. (MM)

Indicates that students who received direct instruction performed significantly better than students trained in inquiry on the analogy task and control subjects on the comprehension task. Gifted students consistently outperformed nongifted students on all measures, and tutored students performed comparably to students trained by the investigators.…

Enumerates results of a study which asked graduate students and doctoral candidates to read in diverse content areas and to select main idea statements for text. Concludes that readers often made initial hypotheses about the main idea and used the main idea construction processes of listing, draft and revise, and topic/comment after the text had…

Analyzes the comments and behavior of one student during an interpretive reading discussion to show that this student proceeds in a cycle of learning. Reviews research in problem solving and reading comprehension to show that, for this student, reading comprehension is problem solving. (FL)

Reinforces the idea of the importance of home influences in early reading behavior. Reveals a significant positive correlation between the literary environment of the home and the "literacy set" of a child in a preschool setting. (FL)

Examines some of the intentions that guided research into story structure, considers some of the validity problems inherent in the research, and outlines some flaws in instructional practices resulting from misinterpretations of it. Concludes with some suggestions for using story structures as a teaching tool. (FL)

Suggests that most administrators accept student test scores as the appropriate goal of reading programs and centralized planning and use of commercial reading materials as the appropriate means for reading instruction, while most teachers seek more effective and communal goals and more autonomy concerning means. (FL)

A modified replication of a study by R. C. Anderson and J. W. Pichert indicates that, even though the retrieval framework can operate selectively in making certain information more accessible for output, it is ultimately constrained by the accessibility of information as determined by the encoding framework. (JD)

Examines the use of the repertory grid technique to describe student responses to the poem "Frost at Midnight" by Coleridge. (HOD)

Reports on an intervention study that trained teachers to be explicit when teaching low reading groups to use reading skills strategically. Concludes that use of the training techniques produced significantly greater student awareness of what was taught but no significant gains in achievement. Copies of the teacher and student rating scales used…

Concludes that subjects in a clinic setting developed a variety of reading and writing strategies to enable them to succeed during their time at the clinic and that helped them maintain their processing--in spite of questionable teaching practices. (FL)

Describes criteria used for selecting learning/study skills textbooks for college freshmen in a required developmental reading course. Contains a checklist used to analyze 47 major textbooks. (FL)

Discusses the fallacy in the Procrustean approach of fitting reading instruction to reading theory. (FL)