Investigates children's peer group discussions of a storybook, an information book, and an informational storybook. Finds older students collaborating more, drawing more on peer information, participating in longer discussions, and making more confirming and challenging responses than younger children. Finds that children stayed on topic longer…

Examines proficient and less proficient high school comprehenders' use of strategies as they read three passages with different top-level structures: collection, causation, and comparison. Finds that both groups of readers use similar strategies. Finds that proficient comprehenders use more previous knowledge on the collection passage and more…

Two studies investigated the placement of interesting details in a text by asking 276 undergraduate students what they could recall after reading a text about a physicist and his scientific work. Placement of detail did not affect recall, but overall interestingness of the text did affect recall. (SLD)

This paper argues that English text-based literacy skills (as opposed to nontext forms of communication such as audio-visual and American Sign Language) are necessary for people with deafness to succeed in the current technological, information-intensive society. (DB)

Discusses how to create a profile of students' abilities to apply document strategies (locate, cycle, and integrate strategies). (SR)

Presents a statistical model for predicting the performance of an automated keywording system on each document it keywords. Methods of text analysis are described, including statistical methods, discriminant analysis, linguistic approaches, and artificial intelligence; performance measures are discussed; and regression models are explained. (16…

Determines the extent to which postsecondary reading textbooks provide an awareness of and strategies for the use of both considerate and inconsiderate text features in the reading of content area textbooks. Analyses 46 postsecondary developmental reading textbooks. Finds that substantially more strategies in these texts concern considerate text…

Offers a procedure to help students develop effective strategies for using labeled diagrams in their research projects. (MG)

This article continues the description of DFT (Document, Find, Theseus), an online documentation system that provides computer-managed on-demand printing of software manuals as well as the interactive retrieval of reference passages. Document boundaries in the hypertext database are discussed, search vocabulary complexities are described, and text…

The ability of foreign language readers to comprehend 3 different story structures of a medieval French folk tale, "Le Bisclavret," was investigated among 120 university language students. Findings suggest that both story organization and amount of second-language study influence recall. Recommendations for classroom instruction are suggested.…

Argues that, by identifying physicist Erwin Schrodinger's book "What is Life?" as inspirational community-forming discourse, it is possible to recognize the rhetorical artistry of his negotiation between two audiences. Notes that the book builds common ground, applies productive ambiguity at a key point of collision, and skillfully…

Examines the strategies used to read science articles written in the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRD) format. Shows how three reader roles (those of the scientist, editor, and reviewer) influence reading strategies. Discusses implications for the understanding of the function and development of the research article and for…

Offers a structural analysis of an explanatory text written by a 12-year-old pupil to demonstrate how the PISA technique (Procedures for Incremental Structural Analysis) contributes to the understanding of conceptual processes in writing. Discusses evidence for the validity of such analysis and its generalizability. (SR)

Investigates effects of variations in font, leading, and justification that account for differences in speed and accuracy between reading aloud from paper versus laptop computer. Finds that: (1) subjects' prior exposure to print significantly and positively related to predicting speed and miscue performance; (2) educational attainment…

Twenty-two graduate students in education at a British university read, answered written questions, and then discussed four text extracts from different genres (literary, theoretical, research, and statistical). Results of this study and a follow-up survey of 39 similar students suggested that text genre is a major factor in perceived difficulty…