Noting that good reading comprehension is aided by the reader's attention to text organization, this paper presents a rationale and method for teaching students to map content materials. The paper begins by noting research demonstrating that good comprehenders attend to text organization. It then briefly reviews research related to the impact on…

Emergent reading levels are those levels a pupil can sustain under direct guidance or with mediation and support by the teacher. A major implication of the emergent reading level construct is that strategies for reading placement would need to be revised. A study was conducted to ascertain whether the emergent reading level concept is valid and…

A variety of techniques for improving readers' analysis-by-synthesis abilities (rapid, efficient reading typical of highly skilled readers) are presented in this paper. The techniques discussed in the first part emphasize improving reading comprehension and include the following: (1) modifications of the cloze procedure (encouraging readers to use…

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between processing load and ability to locate text segments containing intersentence contradictions. It was hypothesized that less able readers fail to exhibit comprehension monitoring skills because most tasks overload their processing capacity. Subjects were 87 fourth and sixth grade students…

A study examined secondary teachers' present knowledge of the reading skills needed by their students. Subjects, 76 teachers of 15 different high school subjects, were asked (1) what specific reading skills they considered most necessary for their students to be able to read subject area materials, (2) what reading skills their students are best…

A study was conducted to determine the effects of word imagery on the retention of sight vocabulary. It was hypothesized that in an urban, low income area first grade class there would be no significant difference between the acquisition and retention rates of high imagery words and those of low imagery words. Using one group of high imagery words…

A 15-item questionnaire, completed by 93 superintendents of Connecticut schools, focused on the identification, program design, instructional strategies, and support provided for early readers, their teachers, and their parents. Responses to each item are summarized statistically, and the general patterns that emerge in each of these areas are…

The practicum described in this study sought to motivate pupils to want to learn to read and to improve their reading skills. Three hundred eighty-two pupils from second through ninth grade who were identified as having reading deficiences were admitted on a referral basis. A standardized test was used to diagnose strengths and weaknesses in…

Children's well-developed oral language skills obviously facilitate their reading and learning to read. In contrast to a traditional position which contends that reading comprehension equals oral comprehension skills plus decoding, this paper claims that a child must learn (and, perhaps, unlearn) many more skills in the transition from oral…

Intended for teachers of reading on the two-year college level, this journal discusses research on the effects of assignments on recognition memory and research on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test as a predictor of college grades in English and psychology. Articles also deal with methods for teaching developmental reading, a program for training and…

In this study, two different approaches to the teaching of reading were designed and presented over an eight-week period, then evaluated according to student scores on three standardized tests. After a pretest, nine first-grade classes were randomly assigned to one of three groups: literature, concept development, or control. In the literature…

Reviews and evaluative comments concerning the 11 papers read during the April 1976 portion of the Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading are included in this document. Before the papers are reviewed, information is presented on some questions posed at the conference within the context of two issues that were raised…

The second Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading, held in May 1976, is evalauted in this paper by pointing out some of the "critical incidents" that occurred at the conference and that indicated the types of interactions that must take place between reading theory and practice in the future. The paper…

A framework for a comprehensive theory of reading is presented in this paper. The framework consists of perceptual, semantic, and control systems. The perceptual and semantic spaces of the theory should not be confused with the terms "decoding" and "comprehension"; decoding and comprehension refer to ways in which those spaces…

The two reading programs discussed in this paper, "Reading Unlimited" (RU) published by Scott Foresman and "New Primary Grades Reading Systems" (RS) by the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, provide maximal contrasts in materials and teaching strategies. The instructional strategies in RU are…