Studies and practices in which parents help children with oral reading are reviewed. The paper argues against techniques which focus on only the mechanical aspects of reading. The paper describes a program for training parents as tutors which uses transcripts of parent/child interactions during the reading process to show reading development.…

Four French language classroom activities are described: an exercise juxtaposing the imperfect and present perfect tenses; exploration of ways of perceiving and describing one's environment; study of the language use and style of a radio program moderator; and two proposed contexts (an international conference and a business) for classroom…

Examines effects of different vocal models, response modes, and grade level on pitch-matching accuracy. Studies 163 children in grades K-3 and grades 7-8. Asks participants to echo singing performed by female and male voices. Finds no significant difference in response modes but significant differences in age-level ability and ability to match…

Explores the effects of speech modification, prior knowledge, and listening proficiency on listening comprehension. Results show significant interactions between speech modification and listening proficiency and between prior knowledge and test type. The authors discuss the implications for teaching and testing of listening comprehension,…

This study compared speech and language comprehension and production between 249 very low birthweight and 363 normal birthweight 8 year olds. Although low birthweight children tended to score lower, when those with major neurological abnormalities were excluded, no significant differences were found between the two groups. However, general…

An experiment exploring Zimbabwean bilingual readers' use of background knowledge in reading comprehension is reported. In contrast to previous results, the bilingual participants of these experiments do use context to improve comprehension on some passages. (15 references) (Author/LB)

Two studies investigated the effects of modified interaction on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition among Japanese high school students learning English as a Second Language. The studies found that interactionally modified input resulted in better comprehension and the acquisition of more new words than premodified input. (MDM)

Contends that, although early precursors to reading and the first phases of reading acquisition have been extensively studied, the acquisition of different components of the reading process have not been considered. Reviews research from the past 15 years to examine the relationship between decoding and comprehension skills. (CFR)

Calculating the reliability of a testlet-based test is demonstrated using data from 1,812 males and 2,216 females taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test verbal section and 3,866 examinees taking another reading test. Traditional reliabilities calculated on reading comprehension tests constructed of four testlets provided substantial overestimates.…

Examines differences among three levels of third grade second-language (L2) readers on four oral variables: grammatical complexity; well-formedness; informativeness; and comprehension. Kruskal-Wallis tests indicate significant differences on all variables between low and high readers. Differences between intermediate and high groups were…

Two studies involving 138 third graders and 18 fifth and sixth graders examined whether children's ability to revise problematic texts could be enhanced through training in a comprehension monitoring strategy. Results show that acquiring a strategy can help children make appropriate revisions to improve the text's comprehension. (SLD)

This article reviews literature supporting the relationship of emotional factors and success in reading and writing activities, outlines physical and language behaviors that indicate emotional involvement with success or lack of success in comprehension, and presents strategies that help children understand what they need to do to read and write…

The impact of direct instruction on reading comprehension strategies and the degree to which cooperative learning processes enhanced students' learning of strategies were studied using 486 third and fourth graders in Pennsylvania. Subjects identified main ideas of passages. Pretest-posttest data highlight the significant impact of direct…

Principles of W. Kintsch's reading comprehension model (1978, 1980) were used to revise an expository text. Two experiments with 170 undergraduates and 125 Air Force recruits indicated that the principled revision conveyed the author's intentions better than the original text, suggesting the model's use for text improvement. (SLD)

Investigates the effects of explicit story structure instruction on below-average fourth and fifth grade readers' narrative writing performance. Finds that explicit story structure instruction positively influenced the narrative writing performance in terms of both quality and quantity of their writing. (MG)