This paper provides a brief survey of current theory concerning reading comprehension and suggests that the role of the reader's knowledge has been largely neglected. Factors that influence the assessment of information or idea gain are the nature of the learner, the nature of the material, the nature of the purposes for reading, and the means…

The process of acquiring knowledge from texts is considered from two perspectives: the learning of the individual facts in the text, and the integration of the facts into a coherent representation reflecting relations among the facts. The former process is presumed to depend on the linguistics content of the text, while the latter process depends…

To investigate the applicability of schema-theoretic notions to young children's comprehension of textually explicit and inferrable information, slightly above-average second grade readers with strong and weak schemata for knowledge about spiders read a passage about spiders and answered wh-questions tapping both explicitly stated information and…

The effects of content schemata, embodying the reader's existing knowledge about a topic, on reading comprehension were examined in two experiments in which high school and college students were instructed to take a distinctive point of view while reading and recalling a story. Perspectives assigned before reading, shortly after reading, and long…

Three studies were conducted as part of a series designed to identify the subskills of word identification that correlate most highly with reading comprehension and to examine various methods of assessing these subskills. In the first study, the prototype of a decoding (word identification) test was administered to 282 first, third, and fifth…

Communication analysis is a tool for perceptual assessment of existing or projected information complexes, i.e., an established reality perceived by one or many humans. An information complex could be of a physical nature, such as a building, landscape, city street; or of a pure informational nature, such as a film, television program,…

This paper describes the process of constructing a measure of a new construct called Parental Awareness. Parental Awareness (PA) can be thought of as an organized knowledge system with which the parent makes sense out of the child's responses and behavior and formulates policies to guide parental action. A clinical method of data collection,…

This publication is designed to acquaint both mathematics teachers and reading specialists with some of the skills students need to read mathematics effectively and to provide sample activities that may be used as a part of mathematics instruction to help students develop these skills. Topics covered include: Specialized Vocabulary and Symbols,…

This study investigates both immediate and delayed effects of two different training procedures on children's listener behavior in a referential communication setting. Using a 2 x 2 design, the presence and absence of a plan for effective listening and modeling of appropriate listener behavior were varied, and the effects of these variations on 40…

The relationship between writing and reading processes can be analyzed from several contextual perspectives. The contextual perspectives may be linguistic, social, schematic, or strategic. While the writer follows several steps in getting meaning into print, the reader may not be able to reverse perfectly these steps and get meaning from print.…

A resource kit for the teaching of French at the intermediate level is represented by a teacher's guide. The aim of this module is to make the elementary or secondary school student of French familiar with terminology used in French radio broadcasts, and especially in weather reports. The guide offers suggested classroom activities. Instructions…

The progress of groups of junior high school students working together was measured by the developmental theories of Bloom, Piaget, and Kohlberg. Each group was assigned the task of designing a coat-of-arms representing their neighborhood. This project involved not only physically producing a shield (designing, drawing, choosing colors) but also…

A study was conducted to test the validity of the Linguistic Features Hypothesis, which predicts that unmarked personal pronouns will be learned first by children, yielding the following order of acquisition: first person before second, followed by third; singular before plural; and subjective case before objective or genitive. A review of the…

The inservice teacher education course described is designed for elementary school teachers seeking to improve their teaching skills in diagnostic reading. The scope and sequencing of topics in the course are outlined. The activities and resources involved in using course materials are described and ordering information is provided. A critique of…

The purpose of this publication is to present methods designed to develop a greater awareness of the affective domain and to examine the way children's literature and poetry is used at school and at home. The 12 articles provide information about the following topics: developing an awareness of attitudes, examining approach-avoidance behaviors in…