Two studies used controlled exposure devices in attempts to improve braille reading. The three null hypotheses tested were that reading practice under controlled exposure does not increase reading rates, any increase will not be maintained, and no differences in comprehension occur because of practice. Subjects were selected by the Gates Basic…

The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of four different reading programs on the decoding and comprehension skills of second and third graders. One reading program used a basal reading series which exercised little control over the grapheme-phoneme correspondences presented in the vocabulary. The second program used a basal…

This unit guide, seventh in a series of seven, is designed to provide eighth-grade social studies teachers with materials that develop the facts, attitudes, and concepts of social studies and that also present reading and study skills instruction. Information about the United States as a world leader is presented along with reading exercises in…

A view of skilled reading is suggested that emphasizes an intimate connection between coding and comprehension. It is suggested that skilled comprehension depends on a highly refined facility for generating and manipulating language codes, especially at the phonetic/articulatory level. The argument is developed that decoding expertise should be a…

Skilled reading depends upon a multiplicity of perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive processes; inadequate development of one or more of these processes may in turn lead to reading difficulty. This report considers some of the processes that may be especially problematic for the young reader. After an overview in which skilled reading is described…

This study discusses six specific strategies that teachers can use to improve elementary students' reading comprehension. First, teach the students to use context clues as one vital part of the decoding process, in order to improve comprehension. Second, increase students' depth of comprehension by triggering discussion of materials they have read…

Many instruments designed to assess reading comprehension reflect instructional tasks that have not clearly been shown to be a part of the process of comprehension. If the measurement instruments are to have construct validity, however, they must be created to reflect what we know about cognitive processing. Recent work in cognitive psychology has…

The classroom interaction model is a strategy to help both teachers and students with reading comprehension. It focuses on literary or informational work rather than on specific skills abstracted from the work or skills proposed by reading texts or curriculum guides. The interaction model indicates that interpretation, application, and…

The minimal comprehension principle asserts that the act of comprehension must entail an interaction between an incoming linguistic message and the reader's world knowledge. An analysis of current tests of reading comprehension indicates that test passages are likely to draw broadly from knowledge of the world, so that some of the variability in…

There are not nearly enough reading specialists to meet the needs of the large number of students with reading deficiencies. In order to determine the effectiveness of training teachers in content areas to play an active role in helping students improve their reading skills, 15 secondary level teachers representing the fields of mathematics,…

To examine the use of factual and inferential questions as adjunct material in prose learning, a study was undertaken in which undergraduate introductory psychology students used different study strategies on a prose comprehension test consisting of an equal number of factual and inferential multiple-choice items. One-hundred twenty students were…

The commonly-used instructional sequence in which children read material silently and then read it orally is simply not effective. The arguments presented by E.A. Betts in 1957 for silent before oral reading can be countered point by point. Studies that have compared various reading conditions have had serious limitations and have failed to show…

To encourage reluctant readers, teachers can use a technique called "read a book in an hour." Students are assigned individual chapters of a paperback novel to read silently. After they have finished reading, they retell the significant chapter events, state the conflicts, and identify the characters as the teacher records the…

Comprehension is a process that occurs within the reader and is at least partially dependent on cohesion and coherence. The concept of cohesion is used to show how sentences which are structurally independent of one another may be linked together. Cohesion exists within a text and is not the same as coherence, which is something the reader…

Extensive research has proven that the functions of the two hemispheres of the brain tend to be qualitatively different. The left hemisphere, which for most people is dominant, is the major controller of speech, reading, and writing; it is the hemisphere toward which education traditionally has been directed. The right hemisphere excels in…