Conceptualizations of the reading process and the nature of comprehension are discussed in relation to the Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) Beginning Reading Program. A method of syntactic analysis is proposed to help identify segments of meaning in reading materials. Components for comprehension assessment and instruction based on auch an…

Two stimuli of either small or capital letters were presented successively by tachistoscopic projectors. College students serving as subjects were requested to respond "yes" if the first stimulus (only one letter) was physically identical to or the same name of one of the letters in the second stimulus. The display size of the second stimulus was…

Reading is a subject about which many people have opinions. Therefore it is necessary for those in the field to determine a perspective through which to examine issues. Such a perspective implies recognizing diverse theories about educational processes and human development and analyzing them, creating a balance among the cognitive and emotional…

Based on the idea that mastery of reading is a complex problem to be solved by a child, the author discusses the learning-to-read process as a series of discoveries of solutions to subproblems, all of which are then ordered into a total system. As a child's attempted solutions approximate more closely the reality of each aspect of the reading…

Teachers' concern with the "what" of reading has clouded the issue of the "how" of reading. Knowledge of how a child goes about particular reading tasks may give clues to the difficulties he is encountering. Work with disabled readers during three phases of behavior--(1) before the breakthrough in acquiring a reading process, (2) at the time of…

The major focus of this investigation was concerned with discovering differences in the substrata-factor patterns which underlie speed and/or power of reading in various known groups: boys versus girls, bright versus dull, fast versus slow readers, and powerful versus nonpowerful readers. Subjects were 211 boys and 189 girls selected at random…

Previous studies have shown that where bilinguals have a poorer grasp of some language than monolingual speakers of that language, the deficit has almost invariably revealed itself in reading skill. Also, the deficit in language is usally associated with a relatively lower mean IQ for bilinguals when tested orally. Bilinguals have also been found…

Uses of the cloze procedure for both diagnosis and for practice exercises for improving reading comprehension in a junior college reading program are described. Every tenth concept word--nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs--was omitted from expository prose selections of about 350 words each, and the reader was asked to write the missing word in…

All 816 articles of 20 volumes of "The Reading Teacher" were descriptively annotated and organized under 18 categories. Each article was placed under the category which best described the major focus of the contents and then cross-referenced to other categories to which it might also apply. A table of the production of articles in each category…

This experiment was a direct test of the hypothesis that picture-word differences in discrimination learning are a function of apparent frequency differences associated with two types of material. The subjects consisted of 80 sixth graders randomly selected from two elementary schools located in middle-class neighborhoods. Each subject was tested…

Children need to learn early that reading can give them new ideas and change old ideas. Pupils are all too often evaluated in terms of their ability to express what they know rather than what they think. Thoughtful reading can be done from the very beginning of reading instruction. Effective questioning practices will develop this ability. The…

Eye movements and comprehension were examined when good and poor seventh graders read materials which contained cloze deletions and read comparable nontreated materials. The number of fixations and regressions increased when good readers read cloze materials. Good readers demonstrated superior comprehension under both treatments. Good readers…

The major purpose of this study was to provide insights into some of the reasoning strategies that may be used by students in obtaining meaning from the printed page. The study was designed to collect and analyze the verbal protocols of 11 seventh grade students involved in introspection as they responded to standardized measures of reading…

Through the meaningful interpretation of sensory data and a background in language experiences, an individual can build more effective knowledge structures. With more effective knowledge structures, one can react more discriminatingly to the written and printed word. Sound knowledge structures involve not only the ability to organize and…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether awareness of context provides any of the following: information about letters, words, or phrases which reduces the amount of time needed to identify those items during reading; information leading to more accurate hypothesis-formation; more accurate identification of a largest manageable unit; and…