A practicum addressed the problem of lack of fluency of learning-disabled and low-achieving students (N=24) retained in the first grade by using predictable books written in a natural manner emphasizing the children's natural language. Two evaluation procedures from the Reading Miscue Inventory were used to determine the degree to which students…

To improve reading/writing skills in a target group of 10 first-grade students, an intensive writing curriculum was implemented over a period of 10 weeks. The program included numerous strategies to improve beginning skills: using concrete objects for classification; using comic strips to illustrate sequencing; daily practice on correct posture…

A study investigated the use of riddles beginning with How, When, and Why to see which question type was easier for low-achieving students to answer correctly, and to see if practice could increase the number of correct answers chosen. For comparison purposes, scores were also collected for an average-achieving group without practice, to see if…

A study investigated the finding that metacognitive ability and reading level are related, and examined the effects of both presentation and response modes on young children's ability to detect ambiguity in messages. An ambiguity detection test was completed by 74 first grade children (who also completed a reading pretest), 26 second graders, and…

Focusing on variables linking fourth graders' reading comprehension and writing ability, a study investigated the (1) relationship between both free recall and comprehension probe scores in reading and analytical scale scores in writing, (2) effects of reading and writing competence on the production of story grammar categories in writing, (3)…

Teachers enrolled in a graduate reading course on the latest research in comprehension and instructional techniques were asked to keep a metacognitive journal instead of writing a traditional term paper. The journal provided the 32 teachers with the opportunity to become aware of the strategies that they use in processing difficult material,…

A study was conceived to develop, implement, and evaluate the Structural-Response Instructional Model for increasing reading/thinking skills through written responses to a text's macrostructure. The study sought to determine: (1) if writing activities increased students' reading comprehension, (2) if the model effectively increased reading…

The problems arising from treating word and sentence complexity as the direct causes of difficulty in comprehension are surveyed in this paper from the perspective of readability formulas. The basic choices and assumptions made in the development and use of readability formulas are discussed in relation to the larger question of text…

Comparing traditional to experiential instruction, a study investigated whether teaching content area vocabulary using hands-on experiences and teacher/student interaction would result in greater vocabulary knowledge and better comprehension of a related text than conventional dictionary work. Subjects, 45 fourth grade students from a chapter 1…

A study was conducted to determine whether extensive vocabularies increase students' notetaking skills. The subjects, 45 volunteer college seniors involved in elementary and secondary student teaching, were given both the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (Form A) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (revised), as well as the general information…

Divided into three sections, this book presents a selection of papers arising from a conference that focused on the impact of recent technological advancements on the development and teaching of reading. An introduction by J. M. Ewing provides general insight on this topic. Identifying major concerns, the first section includes: "Reading and…

A study was conducted to analyze the content of stories in several basal reading systems widely used in primary grade reading instruction. The investigation was in terms of the relative frequency of main characters who are elderly, the portrayal of elderly characters in relation to other characters in the stories, the incidence of aging themes,…

A study compared the results of a 1986 survey on the opinions of preservice teachers with those of a survey conducted in 1984 by William Bennett (at that time chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities). Bennett's survey asked respondents to list 30 works that students should be expected to read before high school graduation.…

Using an advance organizer, an instructional aid designed to precede a main passage and to provide an effective organizational framework for older adults who may not have spontaneously employed their own strategy for understanding written material, a study investigated whether (1) reading comprehension could be instructionally influenced and (2)…

A study examined the ability of 16 children in kindergarten, grade 2, and grade 4 to draw inferences based on the content of a narrative passage and to recognize inferences as derived from, rather than given by, text. An inference task, developed to assess the ability to make and recognize appropriate inferences, consisted of four orally presented…