A nationwide study examined relationships between 201 prelingually deaf adolescents' reading comprehension scores and their hearing mothers' communication strategies and skills. A potential relationship was found between reading scores and signing skill levels of mothers, but no significant relationship between mothers' communication methods and…

A model for understanding reading, containing three components (orthographic/phonological, morphological, and sentence and paragraph comprehension) was tested with 298 preadolescent readers. Maximum likelihood analyses showed that the model provides a good fit for the grade 4 data, a reasonable fit for grade 5, but was less unambiguous for grade…

Clarifies the relationship between oral reading accuracy and the ability to solve worded arithmetic problems using literature reviews. Discusses the implications of oral reading and lists eight guidelines for mathematics teachers. Thirty-seven references are listed. (YP)

Use of Sentence Verification Technique (SVT) reading comprehension tests as general and specific predictors of learning performance in college courses was studied in experiments with 119 and 138 students attending Westfield State College (Massachusetts). Results suggest that appropriate SVT tests can predict general performance and performance in…

Investigates word recognition criteria at the instructional level. Finds that primary and intermediate grade students score below the Betts criteria when miscues are counted but score above the criteria when only significant miscues are counted. Concludes that the Betts criteria are too stringent, especially for primary grade students. (RS)

A discussion of methods for assessing students' use of cognitive reading strategies provides suggestions for what to look for, including decoding dysfluency and cognitive strategies used in nonreading contexts, and a three-part approach to conducting such an assessment. (MSE)

Examines the effect of a tree diagram on college students' comprehension of main ideas in a social sciences expository text. Concludes that the tree diagram significantly improved comprehension of main ideas and relations between elements, irrespective of the students' initial verbal and visual aptitudes. (RS)

A description is given of a reading program for first grade students that encouraged children to move to higher-level thinking skills by removing the constraints of basal readers and involving them in the creative and analytical reading of fairy tales. (JD)

Demonstrates Iser's reader-response theory provides a coherent framework for interpreting and teaching narratives in a foreign language. A sample lesson using the Iserian principle to improve students' reading of foreign language texts. (37 references) (CB)

Reviews two studies that examined the effects of the sex of the speaker and the sex of the listener on recall from a medical audiotape. A study with undergraduates is described, as well as a study with secondary school students that had the added dimension of ability grouping based on reading comprehension. (32 references) (LRW)

Identifies four major assumptions that drive current psychological research on the reading comprehension process. Emerging evidence points to prior knowledge and cognitive and metacognitive processes as critical for the development of skilled reading comprehension, and suggests that instruction on the processes underlying comprehension can improve…

A discourse comprehension model is developed in which the initial processing is bottom-up. Word meanings are activated, propositions are formed, and inferences and elaborations are produced, regardless of the discourse context. A network of interrelated items is created which can be integrated into a coherent structure. (SLD)

Examines the effect of marginal glosses on improving the comprehension of an intermediate-level college foreign language literary text. Students who received a vocabulary list and guide before or during reading recalled significantly more of the passage than those not receiving such help. (CB)

Examines whether content area textbook passages could be rewritten so that middle grade students' main idea comprehension ability was enhanced. Finds that after reading rewritten text versions, some students could compose significantly more passage main ideas, and all students could compose significantly more paragraph main ideas. (MM)

Investigates effects of topic interest, writing ability, and summarization training on seventh-grade subjects' performance on multiple-choice tests and ability to summarize a social studies text. Finds that multiple-choice and summarization measures overlap little in the kinds of text comprehension they assess. (RS)