Explains how teaching study skills using real content area materials was accomplished in an eighth-grade remedial reading class. Investigates student performance in social studies and science classes. Finds that students improved both the self-report of study habits and their grades in social studies and science classes. (RS)

Evaluates the effectiveness of the Sack-Yourman Developmental Speed Reading Course software program designed to increase reading rate and comprehension. Finds the software program effective in allowing students to quickly move from "chore" operations and didactic sections to "real" reading. Offers specific recommendations for…

Examines the effect of simplified reading materials on writing skills of 10-year-old English-as-a-Second-Language students in England. Finds no increase in students' expressive resources but does find a consolidating effect on command of the language system. Relates results to Krashen's model of second language acquisition. (RS)

Examines the postsecondary research base for content area reading strategies. Compares findings to earlier studies of secondary schools. Finds semantic mapping and graphic organizers were more effective for secondary than postsecondary students, although most secondary students were not given instructions for the strategies used. Calls for further…

Describes a program for at-risk sixth grade students designed to address their learned helplessness and enable them to view themselves as competent, capable learners. Suggests using question response cues, double entry/response journals, and self-evaluation to give students some control over their learning. (RS)

Investigates whether teachers behave in ways consistent with their theoretical orientation to reading during reading instruction. Finds that a majority of the teachers did not teach reading in a manner consistent with their self-reported theoretical orientation. (RS)

Reports on two research studies investigating whether teachers can enhance third-grade students' written composition skills by reading aloud to them. Indicates that written composition skills improved, especially written syntactic maturity. (SR)

Reports a longitudinal case study of preschoolers' unprompted questions during story reading with their parents. Reports that children ask more questions about pictures and story meaning than about word meaning and graphic forms. Concludes that home reading may affect comprehension more than print awareness. (RS/JAD)

Describes a study which examined classroom discussions of content area readings and attempted to modify the discussions to reflect more higher-order thinking and critical reading. Finds that teachers did elicit more inferential responses, even though they did not effect substantial and lasting changes in classroom interaction patterns. (RS)

Proposes a view of literacy learning in which various forms of reading and writing are conceptualized as unique ways of thinking about and exploring a topic of study (analogous to a conceptual "landscape") en route to acquiring knowledge (best "traversed" from a variety of perspectives). (MS)

Compares student performances when reading printed text and text on a microcomputer screen. Reports that students have more difficulty locating information on-screen than in-print, particularly within prose passages. (MG)

Emphasizes that the teacher as a role model is crucial to the success of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR). Suggests that teacher modeling of sharing activities immediately after SSR is also very important. (MG)

Reexamines what learning the alphabet means from the child's perspective. Draws from several case studies and other naturalistic examinations of young children as they learn to read and write to describe what young children learn about the alphabet. (MG)

Examines beginning readers' story dictation processes and products over a 16-month period. Investigates level of story structure, conventional expressions, internal responses, spatial-temporal setting, verb tenses, variety of tenses, connectives, anaphora, and dictation process adapting to a scribe. Finds overall development in ability to…

Examines the comparative use of grapho/phonic and syntactic/semantic cues for ongoing word recognition by readers in grades two, four, six, and eight reading both silently and orally. Finds a greater number of altered words were identified in the oral compared to the silent reading mode in grades four, six, and eight. (RS)