Fourth graders who were good readers (N=95) and poor readers (N=27) were given tests of syntactic competence, vocabulary, and auditory and reading comprehension. Scores on the auditory and reading comprehension tests were significantly correlated. Poor readers performed significantly poorer on the syntactic test, but results did not support the…

A case study of a proficient deaf student reading two versions of the same story (one syntactically more complex than the other) supports the notion that a firm semantic base enables processing at the syntactic as well as the semantic level. (Author/CL)

Describes experiments on how readers understand a narrative. Results suggest that readers combine information about the characters, events, and places with information about their order of mention in order to assign referents and that this is part of the process of constructing a model that represents the narrative description. (SED)

Presents results of a study indicating that, over many propositions appearing in passages that vary widely in content and vocabulary difficulty, early and later propositions are better recalled, and that the rated importance of a proposition predicts probability of recall independent of serial position. (HTH)

Thirty-four kindergarten children from an all Black inner city school were administered reading related language measures and the McCarthy Scales of children's abilities. Findings emphasized that screening instruments should include language tests more directly related to early reading acquisition, specifically language analysis skills, rapid…

A five-year retest of 69 pairs of reading disabled children (7-12 years old) and matched controls revealed the persistent nature of reading disability. Despite substantial differences in reading performance and symbol processing speed, both groups exhibited similar rates of change in reading performance. (CL)

Among findings from studies involving 48 9-10 year-olds classified in three dyslexic subgroups were that there were no modality of presentation-specific recall differences among groups and that all three subgroups made significantly more errors than controls in the condition in which it was essential to activate phonetic representations of…

Fifteen aphasic and 15 normal adults demonstrated use of a right hemisphere visuospatial strategy to analyze printed whole words and word parts such as prefixes and suffixes. The performances of the two groups were similar, suggesting that the hypothesized strategy could be useful as a reading approach for aphasics. (Author/CL)

Identifies the characteristics of clear references to explain why certain kinds of broad pronoun reference are clear while others are not. (HTH)

One-hundred eighteen children (five-seven years old) were tested fall and spring on language comprehension logico-perceptual development, and reading acquisition. It was concluded that strategies demonstrated in the logico-perceptual tasks may play a fundamental role in correct interpretation of certain language structures. (Author/CL)

Examines the psycholinguistic perspective of the reading process and describes the development of a secondary-level course in reading that uses a psycholinguistic model. (Author/KS)

Learning Disabilities Association (LDA) of Minnesota has gotten many questions over the years about dyslexia. Examples of questions answered in this issue include: (1) When a learner reverses letters, is this dyslexia? (2) How does one teach an adult with dyslexia? (3) Can dyslexia be cured? and (4) Can GED accommodations be received for dyslexia?…

We can improve reading instruction by using the strengths any child brings to the reading task. (Author)

Reviews recent trends in composition research. Suggests that the apparently divergent directions of study reflect a new interest in writing as a process rather than as a product, and in reading as a response to or re-creation of the text rather than a passive acceptance of textual information. (MM)