Using a conceptualization of good thinking that is general and has application in all fields of study as the basis for a conceptualization of good reading, this booklet presents a case for the use of a critical thinking framework to define the domain of reading objectives, skills, or questions. The booklet's first section, "A New Framework…

The relationship between course work and general learning at Stanford University (California), Mills College (California), and Ithaca College (New York) was studied. The study used the Differential Course Work Patterns (DCP) Project faculty survey and Cluster Analytic Model (CAM) to link course work to student assessment. The study examined what…

Using the Cluster Analytic Model (CAM), two samples of graduating seniors from Georgia State University were studied to determine the effect of different patterns of college course work on their general learned abilities. The CAM uses Student Achievement Test scores, Graduate Record Examination scores, and transcripts for course work patterns.…

In an effort to evaluate comprehension skills with a "real world" task, students were asked to summarize and respond to an excerpt from a college freshman textbook. The written responses of a group of both high school students (n=100) and college students (n=51) were analyzed through a checklist developed to assess students'…

This handbook contains brief essays concerning aspects of reading and reading skills, activities designed to promote those skills, and biographies of reading specialists. The first section of the handbook discusses reading readiness, word recognition, word analysis, word meaning, comprehension, and content area reading. After discussion of each…

Originally developed for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on the role of metacognition in reading to learn is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes a comprehensive search of the ERIC database; a lecture giving an overview on the topic; the…

After establishing a theoretical depiction of the domain of literature learning, a study developed test packages which examined: (1) the relationship among multiple choice, short open-ended, and long open-ended responses; (2) whether there would be differences according to the genres; (3) the relationship between literary and non-literary texts,…

Finding meaning in an ordinary prose text and following a description or argument is generally considered less difficult than finding the essential message in a literary text. Sometimes, however, the emotional impact makes it easier for some readers with some texts to see and understand the meaning of some literary texts. Research from the…

Working on the hypothesis that if readers had several alternative correct meanings of a given text set before them they would select the one in accordance with their abstract abilities and intellectual maturity, a study investigated the measurement of levels of meaning as illustrated in taxonomies and focused on the applicability of the taxonomies…

Three studies investigated the nature of the author-reader relationship during discourse comprehension and production, as well as the influence of selected factors on the author-reader relationship. The first study produced data indicating that the relationship is susceptible to subtle variations in the identity of the author. In those situations…

A study investigated the hypothesis that high frequency words can be effectively specified when word shape data are combined with available contextual clues. To test this hypothesis, an augmented contextual restriction task similar to one used by R. N. and L. R. Haber was employed. The task differed in terms of increased passage difficulty and the…

Two experiments were conducted to determine the emergent reading levels of elementary school students. In the first experiment, 27 third grade and 27 sixth grade students of average reading ability from rural schools in central Florida were given pretest and posttest cloze passages on science materials two readability levels above their grade…

Designed to analyze systematically the relative effects of different types of oral reading errors on comprehension, this instrument consists of a basic set (each with an easy and a hard version) of six stories. Every story is transformed so that it contains simulated errors of a particular type: (1) correct, (2) semantically related visually…

Designed to determine a reader's ability in processing information relationships in written discourse in English, the extended-cloze instrument consists of six reading passages, each with four complete sentences deleted. Students read each passage and select the best of four multiple choice alternative sentences for each deletion. The instrument…

Designed to be used along with a multiple-choice instrument for further assessment of the immediate and delayed comprehension of a 1,300 word expository passage on the Kalahari Desert, the instrument is a 35-item posttest, divided into five clusters, each composed of six to eight lettered phrases. Twenty verbatim phrases from the passage are…