Asserts that students gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of what they have read when they have systematic opportunities to integrate reading with drama, oral language, and art. Discusses how to use drama, Reader's Theater, oral interactions, and the visual arts to improve reading comprehension. (PRA)

Discusses research on the use of graphic organizers to facilitate reading comprehension. Suggests that the research is inconclusive in determining the type of organizer to be used, when organizers should be introduced, and the type of students that benefit most from organizers. Discusses directions for future investigations. (PRA)

Results of the first year of a 3-year study involving development and testing of hypermedia computer-assisted instruction (CAI) with 8 K-3 classes are reported. The hypermedia reading lessons offered additional information about words and concepts in the basal reading textbook. The generally promising preliminary results were inconclusive…

Two studies investigated the placement of interesting details in a text by asking 276 undergraduate students what they could recall after reading a text about a physicist and his scientific work. Placement of detail did not affect recall, but overall interestingness of the text did affect recall. (SLD)

Describes teaching an approach to clarifying relationships among ideas in texts (based on S. Toulmin's model of argument analysis) which helps students move from teacher-directed classroom reading to independent self-monitored comprehension. (SR)

Describes using book diaries as a way for students to respond in writing to their reading as they practice the comprehension strategies learned in class; also describes using the diaries as an informal means of assessing students' learning and communicating regularly with parents. (MG)

Describes reading response journals and discusses how and when they can be used to help students foster their ability to connect literature with their own lives and increase comprehension. (MG)

English-as-a-Second-Language students participated in an experiment investigating the roles of context on comprehension. Subjects read poems in three contexts; with accompanying picture and title, with title only, and without title or picture. Results indicated that the students focused on literal language and needed additional instruction to make…

Some 226 Hong Kong students in grades 7-9 benefited from a 4-week summer program on reading comprehension, reading speed, and writing development. Results are discussed in the context of the local sociolinguistic environment. (15 references) (Author/LB)

A research project undertook to address schema theory applied to the reader's active mental contribution to the act of reading by focusing on the extent to which linguistic, content, and formal schemata types combine in the act of understanding a text in an English-as-a-foreign-language context. Discussion of results notes implications for the…

Investigated the effect of children's problem schemata and working memory span on the accuracy of children's solutions of arithmetic word problems. Results supported the hypothesis that the amount of working memory resources activated is independent of schemata activation, and indicated a weak relationship between memory and problem-solving…

Studies whether global, causal inferences are made during comprehension. Provides verbal protocol data in the form of talking aloud during reading. Discusses the data with reference to processing claims and working-memory models. Considers what verbal protocols reveal about processing. (HB)

Examines how high school students use diagrams and summaries during reading and the roles of verbal and spatial ability. Finds a significant direct effect of verbal ability on the recall but no effect of spatial ability on recall. Finds more inspections of diagrams in the first few sentences followed by a random inspection pattern. Discusses…

Theories of reading emphasize the cognitive processes and metacognitive skills that readers employ to read with comprehension and insight. Teachers are referred to a resource book, "Enhancing Reading Comprehension," and a five-volume series of coursebooks, "Focus." Each is described briefly. (LB)

Investigates whether the vocabulary of written comprehension questions is an independent factor in determining students' reading comprehension performance. Finds that academic vocabulary in comprehension questions significantly decreased question-answering performance. Computes simple, multiple, and semipartial correlations between vocabulary…