Compares the effect on beginning readers' main idea comprehension of a direct instruction model, basal reader main idea comprehension lessons, and language extension lessons for group-dictated experience charts. Reports that the direct instruction group outperformed basal and control groups in determining main ideas across a variety of tasks. (MM)

Investigates the process involved in acquiring word knowledge from written context in prereading kindergarten children. Analyzes children's readings of picture books to identify patterns of vocabulary growth. Concludes that children learned lexicogrammatical information incidentally through exposure to written context. (MM)

Advocates (in a humorous style) the teaching of specific reading skills. (NKA)

Reveals high awareness of comparison/contrast structure and low awareness of causation structure. Supports the hypothesis that structure-aware students are more likely to use a structural strategy when reading than unaware students. Reveals that sixth graders have some text structure knowledge and may be promising candidates for instruction in how…

Longitudinal study investigated the relationship between print awareness and reading during the reading acquisition process of children from kindergarten through first grade. Results indicate that while print awareness plays a role in children's transition towards literacy, that role is entwined with the role of other reading knowledge and skills.…

Presents firsthand observations of a successful twenty-day reading program involving one student who was transformed from a passive, reluctant, indifferent learner to one who acquired ownership for his learning and empowerment over the reading process.

Asserts that teachers should help students move beyond an information-exchange view of reading to a more complex rhetorical model of constructing meaning. Reports on a study which investigated meaning constructions and compares the more traditional function/feature strategies of constructing meaning with rhetorical strategies, which construct…

Suggests that writing helps reading comprehension only if the writer is aware of the relationship between reading and writing and if the writing is purposeful. Presents three purposeful writing activities. (ARH)

This paper investigated the apparent failure of subjects to assess accurately their own reading comprehension. The results showed that readers who exhibited an illusion of knowing tended to have shown distortions in their passage summaries, whereas subjects who knew that they had failed to comprehend were more likely to have omitted information…

Describes an approach to teaching the elementary school curriculum using heuristics, which develops children's critical thinking skills. (SRT)

Outlines procedures used in an investigation of college students' thinking aloud protocols and discusses the framework developed for differentiating student-text interactions and identifying the common problems of less able comprehenders. Suggests ways to use protocols to look into the ways students comprehend texts, to identify comprehension…

Explains how journal dialogues (student interaction with author) act as an intermediate step between purely personal responses to a text and formal interpretations for a public audience and how they encourage students to explore and develop ideas for essay writing. (HOD)

Describes four experiments that examined the influence of an information units' category membership, normative importance, and goal-relatedness on its perceived importance. Results suggest that category membership and goal-relatedness did affect perceptions of importance.(HOD)

Describes a study that explored the relationship between performance of a schematic concept formation task (SCF) and reading performance in students of English as a second language. Above average readers had significantly higher SCF ranks than below average readers. Offers suggestions for future research with SCF tasks. (SED)

Discusses a model of the reading process drawn from ideas used in foreign language instruction and resting on the distinction between reading acquisition and reading learning. Explains how the model can be applied in the classroom. (FL)