Studies of 42 fifth-grade students and 36 college undergraduates were conducted to test changes in verbalizations of schemata over time and in response to informational jolts. In both experiments, subjects were asked to write everything they could think of about dinosaurs and then to put those ideas in order of importance. Two weeks later, the…

The degree to which printed text and graphics complement each other to facilitate reading comprehension was studied with the following four research tools: a system for analyzing text and graphics to reveal aspects of their form and content; procedures to permit analysis of both verbal and nonverbal recall measures of comprehension, allowing…

AN EXPLORATION OF COMPREHENSION AND RAPID READING IS PRESENTED. THE QUALITY OF READING IS DISCUSSED FROM THE STANDPOINT OF EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS. RESEARCH FINDINGS WHICH INDICATE THE LOW COMPREHENSION RESULTING FROM "DYNAMIC" READING, THAT IS, READING DOWN THE CENTER OF THE PAGE WITH NO LEFT-TO-RIGHT EYE MOVEMENTS, ARE CITED.…

There are several problems associated with research using the schema concept. One problem is that there seems to be a lack of cumulative development, with the research being horizontal in quality, spreading out to new areas. Another problem with schema research is that a person not already convinced of the merit of the schema notion can remain…

Readers cannot profitably be studied without some assessment of the texts they read. Analyses of texts, however, are of doubtful value unless tested against readers' behavior. Despite the relative neglect of text in research on reading, numerous approaches to the analysis of text have been proposed. The developments within linguistics and the…

Psychological research concerning several aspects of the relationship between existing knowledge schemata and the processing of text is summarized in this report. The first section is concerned with dynamic processes of story understanding, with emphasis on the integration of information. The role of prior knowledge in accommodating parts of…

This report reviews what is known about the role of vocabulary knowledge or knowledge of word meanings in reading comprehension. It states that while an assessment of the number of meanings a reader knows enables a remarkably accurate prediction of an individual's ability to comprehend discourse, the reasons why word knowledge correlates with…

Attempts have been made to develop a model of the process of reading comprehension as a whole that would indicate under what conditions and for what reasons a long sentence might be more effective than several short ones, when repetition is helpful and when distracting, when content is better left implicit in a text, and how overexplicitness might…

Developments in linguistics, particularly in Europe in the work of T.A. Van Dijk, a broader conception of texts that shows promise for the study of reading. Textlinguistics covers a domain of linguistics studies that are involved with texts. Textlinguists are interested not only in those obvious immediate connecting mechanisms, such as anaphora,…

A brief review of reading research studies is presented, and the need for unifying reading theories is discussed. It is noted that speed training, comprehension skills, and vocabulary development compose the main areas of reading research and that most of the studies are taxonomic and do not give accurate explanations or allow for predictions and…

First and second graders were taught to recognize a set of written words either more accurately or more rapidly. Both before and after word training, they named pictures printed with and without these words as distractors. Of interest was whether training would enhance or diminish the interference created by these words in the picture naming task.…

Information on six research programs which studied eye movements during reading and evaluated aspects of PLATO-displayed reading instructional material is provided in this report. An analysis of eye movements of "competent" and "less competent" readers reading for general and detailed information showed many differences between…

This paper analyzes the reading task, using a conceptual analysis of reading developed by the linguistic philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Eschewing theory and explanation while leading his reader through a series of cases and experiences, Wittgenstein causes the reader-experiencer-viewer to "see" that reading is a word which stands for…

The purpose of this investigation was to test whether the assembly or system model was more adequate to account for the relationships among subskills in normal and disabled readers. Thirty-eight subjects were divided into three groups. There were 19 disabled subjects with a mean chronological age of 9.17, a mean IQ of 104.84, and a mean reading…

This paper provides information concerning a technique for indexing internal processing during reading. The paper details three criteria necessary for a viable index, discusses techniques currently used for indexing reading behavior, and describes a technique known as "disruptive effect"--the degree to which the probability of occurrence…