Describes the uses and benefits of reciprocal teaching, a strategy that promotes both comprehension of text and comprehension monitoring. (HOD)

Reports on a survey used to evaluate the secondary school reading program in Polk County, Florida. (DF)

Tests the hypothesis that second language (L2) students' approach to text reflects a top-down processing strategy in contrast to first language (L1) students' approach that is more text-driven. Results confirmed L2 subjects studied the texts less efficiently than L1 subjects. (HOD)

Presents a direct instruction approach to reading comprehension that stresses the use of three forms of knowledge--declarative, procedural, and conditional. Offers a sample lesson demonstrating the application of this approach for teaching a comprehension skill, and concludes with a discussion of how comprehension skill instruction in commercial…

Examines the social perspectives presented by a sample of the Children's Choices books to determine if the protagonists' behavior is primarily individualistic or shows concern for the group or community. Concludes that the books tended to espouse the self as the focus for activity. (FL)

Analyzes and compares the content of four reading journals for the years 1973 and 1983 on eight categories of comprehension instruction and three categories of comprehension follow-up and reveals an increase in the number of articles focusing on comprehension issues and practices. (DF)

Reports that high school remedial readers perceived good stories to be good stories despite adaptations in readability and length, and poor stories were not helped by improving readability or decreasing length. (FL)

Examines the extent to which elementary school principals perceive themselves as performing specific reading supervision or administration behaviors connected with teachers, students, policy, or the community. (FL)

Classroom teachers identified all the decisions they made in order to teach reading effectively and then ranked the three they considered most critical to student reading achievement. Results showed that placement decisions were viewed by teachers as primary, followed by decisions relating to student needs and those concerning program improvement.…

Argues that, in the high school classroom, it may appear that much is being learned, but in the minds of pupils there is often considerable confusion as to the meaning of what they have read. Reports on a study that explored the nature of that confusion and discusses what can be done. (RBW)

Concludes that both chunking and shorter line lengths have positive effects on reading efficiency but that high line length variability has a stronger negative effect. Suggests that, because chunking increases line length variability, it can interfere with reading. (FL)

Examines the role of various word features (versatile letter combinations) and basal text factors (word repetitions) in the developing word recognition skills of 93 first-grade students. Indicates that the text to which children are exposed early in first grade may differentially shape their word identification strategies. (HOD)

Using kindergarten subjects, a study examined whether prereaders learned better with visual cues while novice readers learned better with phonetic cues. (HOD)

Examines the effects of providing subjects with prior information about the organization of expository passages. Concludes that a structural organizer with outline grid and that notetaking alone both reliably and markedly facilitated comprehension and recall, and that a structural organizer without outline grid reliably facilitated comprehension…

Finds a significant positive relationship between fourth-grade students' reading ability and their ability to make appropriate decisions about English spelling. Suggests how classroom practice might be modified to facilitate children's understanding of orthographic structure. (FL)