Sixteen children with severe reading problems in first grade received a year-long individual tutorial intervention. Growth curve analyses found significant gains on measures of orthographic and phonological coding, word identification, word attack skills, reading comprehension, letter automaticity, and spelling and marginally significant gains in…

Summarizes an interactive computer-based reading program developed to enhance the linguistic proficiency of intermediate language students and increase their awareness of Francophone cultures. The article describes the program's glossing capabilities and its tracking device and summarizes the pilot research that preceded the program. (38…

Evaluated the development and implementation of Questioning-the-Author, an instructional technique that focuses on reconstructing and extending author meaning, and on refining and using related discussion comments to construct new questions and develop more evidential insight. Found that teacher talk decreased in quantity and increased in quality.…

This study examined whether graphic organizer instruction would facilitate comprehension, recall, and information transfer, and how much explicit instruction was necessary for independent generation of graphic organizers. Fifth graders read social studies information with or without graphic organizers and explicit instruction. Explicitness and…

Using a multiple-choice test and a story frame test, this study measured the effect on reading comprehension of reading a story aloud to English-as-a-Second-Language students. Findings indicate that these students outperformed on both tests those students who read the story silently. (Six references) (Author/CK)

This article discusses the reading fluency and comprehension problems of struggling secondary students who can read, with assistance, on a fourth-grade reading level or above. Difficulties with vocabulary and sentence construction are described, along with problems with pronoun reference and noun substitutions, metaphor, and conventions of print.…

This article explores the relationships between vocabulary knowledge and text readability. It discusses how procedures used by readability formulas to assess the vocabulary factor can over- or underestimate text difficulty by counting syllables rather than assessing what the reader knows about the words in a text. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Focuses on the role of tests in assessing the reading comprehension of students of English as a Second Language. The article suggests that if tests are to be useful in placing students and developing instruction, they need to provide information about the reading processes of immediate interest. (83 references) (CK)

Examines the differences in effectiveness of three types of dictionaries--monolingual, bilingual, and "bilingualised" in the comprehension and production of new words by learners of English as a foreign language. The study tested participants on the comprehension of target words and on their ability to use these words in their own sentences. (16…

Discusses subvocalization and other ways in which people read silently. Comments on authorial voice and offers ways to experiment with creative reading aloud. Notes how the proliferation of advertising, the media "explosion," and the influence of modernism in literature has changed the fundamental sense of what reading is and how to do…

Investigates how children represent meaning in their response to stories through listening, speaking, reading, drawing, and writing. Finds no one particular language process to be exclusively used by children to convey meaning in response to story. Discovers sequential and simultaneous linkage patterns of language process modality. (KEH)

Teachers and students must build semantic connections between words of the text and already familiar ways of speaking, integrating the formal language of the subject into their own ways of speaking. This article demonstrates how classroom dialogue can help make textbook language part of the language of the students. (IAH)

Describes an informal inventory that gives underprepared college freshmen the opportunity to express their own perceptions of their reading needs and interests. Finds that students are most concerned with reading rate. Suggests that speed-reading activities play to students' interests while at the same time giving practice in comprehension skills.…

Analyzes transcripts of four reading lessons based on the Kamehameha Reading Program (emphasizing discussion and oral language within group reading lessons) given to three low-ability second grade readers. Identifies six components important to reading success, including contextual-based lessons, minimal skills instruction, and active quests for…

Discussion of text segmenting and comprehension highlights a study of elementary students in Australia that tested two hypotheses, one concerning reading abilities and one concerning information processing skills involved in syntactic analysis. Tests that measured vocabulary, comprehension, and processing skills are described, results are…