This study evaluated effects of a direct instruction main idea summarization program and a self-monitoring technique on the reading comprehension of four sixth-grade students with learning disabilities. A multiple probe across student design was used. One student did not receive instruction and served as a control subject. Student performance was…

This project paper described a program for increasing reading comprehension. The targeted population consisted of sixth grade students at River Bend Elementary School in a middle class community located in western Illinois. The problem of a steady decline in reading comprehension was documented by the Illinois Goals Assessment Program, Iowa Tests…

Designed to reinforce initial training and to provide a collection of useful ideas for students who serve as peer tutors, this guidebook provides tips for tutors to improve the reading abilities. Following an introduction which asserts the benefits of peer tutoring programs, the guidebook is divided into two major sections: "Tutoring…

Cooperative learning has received a substantial amount of empirical support to indicate it is a viable classroom reward structure. It has been recommended that school psychologists might add this strategy to their repertoire of interventions to be used in consulting with teachers, particularly integrating handicapped students. A structured…

A qualitative study investigated the test-taking behaviors, knowledge, and perceptions of 20 urban, adult basic education students reading at third to fifth grade equivalency levels. The entire reading comprehension subtest of the Test of Adult Basic Education, levels E and M, was administered under standardized conditions. A combination of…

A study examined the effect of the active verbalization model in a supplemental reading program to develop metacognitive learning ability in emergent readers. Subjects, 38 below-average first graders from a middle-class elementary school in Ohio, were assigned to one of three groups based on classroom assignments. The teacher instructed the first…

It appears that the value of providing students with strategies to activate their prior knowledge base or to build a base if one does not exist is supported by current research. Creating an opportunity to challenge students to call on their collective experiences (prior knowledge) is essential. Through this process, teachers move students from…

Students of English as a Second Language (ESL) in an academic program must be able to write paraphrases, but they often lack strategies for accomplishing this complex task successfully. The process requires skill in reading, comprehension, analysis, selection of new structures and vocabulary, and integration into a written product. Paraphrases…

In a study of memory use in language comprehension, 84 second grade, 54 sixth grade, and 54 college students produced elaborations on sentences. In a context elaboration, task students put sentences in different contexts, and, in a causal inferencing task, they inferred alternative reasons for events. Language understanding was measured by the…

A practicum designed and implemented a program to address the related problems of negative attitudes toward reading, low reading abiility, and poor student working vocabulary. Intervention strategies and critical thinking activities were used to raise students'"Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) scores and to improve students' attitudes toward…

The use of computers to build diagnostic inferences is explored in two contexts. In computerized monitoring of liquid oxygen systems for the space shuttle, diagnoses are exact because they can be derived within a world which is closed. In computerized classroom testing of reading comprehension, programs deliver a constrained form of adaptive…

A study provided students with relevant background knowledge and tested the effects of this knowledge on two versions of a text. The two text versions were four original segments of text from a fifth-grade social studies textbook about the period leading to the American Revolution and their revised versions from an article in "Reading…

A longitudinal study investigated the effects of an early intervention program with students who were identified as being at risk for developing reading disabilities. Intervention effects on reading comprehension and the developing relationship between reading comprehension and the linguistic processes of students were studied. The intervention…

A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that the ability to comprehend in reading has no effect on mathematical problem solving ability of seventh grade students. Two seventh grade classes were administered a standardized test of reading comprehension and knowledge of mathematical concepts and application at the beginning of a school year.…

Intended to illuminate current understanding of how the reader's cognition and language and the text's structure affect the processing of prose, this volume contains articles written by educators, linguists, psychologists, and artificial intelligence experts on issues of comprehension research. The first part of the book examines reading…