Examines the impact of shared reading experiences with predictable books on 24 inner-city African-American first graders' attitudes toward reading. Finds no significant differences in reading attitudes after eight weeks of intervention. (RS)

Investigates the effect of directed discussion of character perspectives on children's ability to respond in terms of the perspectives of major characters. Finds that sixth graders involved in such discussion received higher ratings for their responses to stories than fourth and fifth graders in the experimental group and sixth graders in the…

Determines, for reading specialists in general and for reading specialists in the federally funded Chapter 1 program specifically, (1) their professional training; (2) their actual responses as compared to their perceived "ideal" responsibilities; and (3) their topic preferences for in-service education offerings. (RS)

Investigates and demonstrates the strong effects of the role of global discourse organization on the comprehension of temporal order in narrative texts. Proposes three principles of discourse organization. Tests the comprehension of underlying event order of five passages by subjects. (HB)

Finds that when children write without any picture, they use a more developed story narrative than when they are given pictures as an initial stimulus. Suggests that it is the content of the picture and the way in which it is presented that affects story structure. (RS)

Points out problems of using literature in the early stages of the foreign language curriculum as well as disciplinary politics arising from defining the enterprise in terms of literary study. It is argued that the proposition that one should learn a language to read literature in the original is theoretically questionable and rhetorically…

Compares effects of teaching words in either semantic random groupings. Finds that the treatment had very strong effects, but student performance was not affected by whether the words were grouped in categories. Suggests that, given rich and elaborate instruction, semantic grouping is not necessary. (RS)

Defines the Paired Reading technique and comments upon minor variations. Discusses the background to Paired Reading, and the theoretical framework for the technique. Concludes that its effects are mediated by a number of different factors, and the technique should, therefore, be widely philosophically acceptable. (SR)

Finds that students ask more interpretive predictive questions than literal or applied predictive questions. Finds that teachers ask more literal prequestions than interpretive or applied prequestions about the same expository selection. (RS)

Asserts that students' inaccurate prior knowledge in science can hinder the learning process. Presents instructional strategies for elementary and secondary school students that have been proved effective by research, such as augmented activation activities, refutational text, nonrefutational text, and the discussion web. (PRA)

Describes how a teacher-researcher used knowledge modeling as a basis for assessing students' knowledge. Discusses how the scoring template was created and how the students' recollections were scored. Finds that students with no prior knowledge of a subject were at a disadvantage in the classroom. (PRA)

Examines junior high school students' adolescent literature selection process. Finds that the summary on the inside flap and the cover illustrations are the most frequently used cover clues for book selection. (RS)

Suggests that students can improve their memory of Scholastic Aptitude Test vocabulary words by associating the words with corresponding pictures taken from magazines. Finds that long-term recall of words associated with pictures was higher than recall of words not associated with pictures. (RS)

This article examines the effects of some of the testing procedures used in current second-language reading research on learners' performance on these tasks and suggests guidelines for developing future research instruments and classroom reading comprehension tests. (Contains 40 references.) (VWL)

Reviews the controversy over a biological basis for developmental dyslexia and illustrates it with two case studies of junior high school students. Reviews neurological evidence for developmental dyslexia, and proposes seven signs characteristic of reading disability that may qualify as dyslexia. (SR)