This research study had two purposes, (a) to design and develop a Web-based learning environment that supports the use of a set of reading strategies, and (b) to investigate the impact of this Web-based learning environment on readers' "memory" and "understanding" of an instructional unit on the human heart (Dwyer &…

As a result of the Reading First Program of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the view of reading has narrowed. Individual state's Reading First professional development programs, and hence reading teachers across the United States, have spent the six years since the funding of the program in 2002 focusing beginning and developmental reading on…

The mechanisms underlying nonword pronunciation have a been a focus of debates over dual-route and connectionist models of reading aloud. The present study examined two aspects of nonword naming: spelling-sound consistency effects and variability in the pronunciations assigned to ambiguous nonwords such as MOUP. Performance of a parallel…

Measures of automaticity have shown different developmental trends in the speed and accuracy of processing in learning disabled (LD) and normally achieving children. This study extends this research to young adults, comparing the learning disabled with normal achievers. Its primary focus was to document the presence of basic processing deficits in…

The metacognitive aspects of reading include knowledge about and regulation of the mental processes involved. The knowledge component includes self-knowledge, which is awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses, and task-knowledge, which is awareness of the characteristics of the task and appropriate strategies for dealing with them. The…

A classification of factors that go into the complex process of reading or learning to read is presented. These factors are listed in outline format under the following sections: (1) sensory input, (2) mediating activity, (3) response, (4) reward and/or motivation, (5) knowledge of results, (6) reward variations, (7) rate of reading, (8) practice…

The initial means for arriving at a dynamic model of reading were suggested in the form of "behaviormetric" research. A review of valid reading models noted those of Smith and Carrigan, Delacato, and Holmes as eminent, and it distinguished between models based on concrete evidence and metaphors of the reading process which are basically…

Productive daydreaming is viewed as an aspect of creative reading that can add to imagination and creativity; it combines the freedom to imagine with the contemplative state of mind. (Author)

Results of asking secondary school students about their responses to fiction, with implications for teaching. (AA)

Investigates readability of different line lengths in advertising body copy, hypothesizing a normal curve with lower scores for shorter and longer lines, and scores above the mean for lines in the middle of the distribution. Finds support for lower scores for short lines and some evidence of two optimum line lengths rather than one. (SKC)

An overview of psychophysical studies on visual factors that influence normal- and low-vision reading is presented. General principles, such as the presence or absence of central vision, were found to predict reading performance despite the heterogeneity of low-vision conditions. Results suggested most low-vision subjects meet the visual…

Describes two experiments showing that experienced readers use text signals to guide their attention to relevant information in a text. Indicates that subjects (1) took longer to read a summary sentence if it was signaled in advance, especially poor readers, and (2) recalled important information better if the information was signaled. (JD)

Describes two experiments that look at how a reader identifies and represents the major topics in a text and their interrelationships. The first experiment demonstrates that readers show on-line sensitivity to the organization of major text topics. The second experiment investigates the nature of such on-line processing of topic structure. (SED)

Compared with children at the same grade levels in reading, 50 incarcerated men performed better on some tasks but worse on those that required a knowledge of sound-spelling correspondences, on which they resembled children who are poor readers. The men were surprisingly uniform in lacking segmentation and decoding skills. (Author/CL)

Research on visual and phonological coding in reading words for meaning is reviewed, and two studies are described that examined the word processing of skilled and less skilled elementary school readers. Findings revealed support for previous studies stressing the importance of the automatic nature of reading skills. (CL)