A study examined the effect of amount of intervening text on the detection of semantic inconsistencies and use of strategic backtracking, by competent and less competent college readers. Data were elicited from 40 undergraduate students (selected on the basis of their high or low scores on a variety of instruments) enrolled in an introductory…

This study examined teachers' beliefs about how reading takes place and how reading processes develop. Subjects, 25 first-, fourth-, and sixth-grade teachers in five different Venezuelan schools, were administered protocols that consisted of a researcher/teacher conference, classroom observation, and an inventory designed to identify beliefs about…

A study examined the effect on students' perceptions of the reading process of the first professional sequence of classes in foundations of teaching reading and language arts. A variety of quantitative and qualitative data were gathered concerning the subjects (22 sophomore undergraduate elementary teacher education majors) including: students'…

A study was conducted to assess the possible effects of headings on the search and recall performance of high- and low-knowledge subjects, 153 college students in an introductory psychology course. Seventy-five of the subjects read a 1,760-word adaptation of the passage on organizational processes in memory--the low-knowledge passage. The other 78…

This Workshop Leader's Guide is designed to assist Technical Assistance Center staff members and other inservice providers in conducting successful workshops on reading comprehension for teachers, administrators, and others associated with Chapter 1 programs. The guide contains step-by-step procedures for preparing, organizing, and presenting a…

To provide students with the literacy strategies necessary to function successfully in a technologically supported society, teachers must realize how the multilayered grammars of computers continue to affect their definition of literacy. Computer-supported writing centers are an excellent site for teachers to share ideas about this changing…

A study tested the hypothesis that readers continually evaluate the informational content of text in terms of its relevance to processing goals and congruence with existing knowledge, and that they prioritize this information in terms of its strategic importance to the task at hand, integrating it with existing schemata when it is compatible.…

Using a large, preexisting miscue analysis database, a study explored the influence of specific text characteristics on reader/text interaction. Subjects--24 second, 32 fourth, and 32 sixth graders--read three texts. Four specific questions were addressed: What relevant miscue patterns do the readers of each text and of the combined three texts…

As comprehension failure results whenever readers are unable to infer missing causal connections, recent comprehension research has focused both on assessing the inferential complexity of texts and on investigating students' developing ability to infer causal relationships. Studies have demonstrated that texts rely on four types of causal…

To explore imagery and emotional involvement in reading, a study examined readers' imagery and emotional responses through the use of ratings for each paragraph in a story. Subjects, 40 undergraduate volunteers recruited from education classes, read a 2100-word excerpt from the novel "Buffalo Chief" by Jean and Paul Annixter. Students…

A study examined the assumption that writing is a way to learn by examining the relative effects of writing and studying as learning aids. The study also explored the role of individual differences in an effort to identify features of the writing process that may influence what students learn through writing. The experiment used think-aloud…

To look at the relationship of personality type to differences in reading behavior among accomplished readers, a study analyzed a reading assignment for reading strategies used. Subjects, 27 college seniors majoring in secondary education, were given the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, and were then given a reading journal activity, in…

As part of a series of studies describing the oculomotor behavior of skilled readers, a study investigated whether a word refixation curve exists. Subjects, 66 college students fixating over 40,000 times, read lines of text from a computer screen and were instructed to read for meaning without regard to errors. Results of eye movement control…

This article presents an account of how one teacher and one student work through James Joyce's short story, "Eveline," illustrating an important reconceptualization of literacy--the teacher struggles to make public those aspects of reading which are often only assumed or left covert, namely, entering the world of the text, groping for…

Although knowledge of multimeaning words is important for reading comprehension, deaf readers may know only the most common meanings or nuances of high-frequency multimeaning words. Results of a study are reported in which 33 profoundly hearing impaired students stratified into three equal age groups (ages 10, 11, and 12) were administered a…