Recent developments in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence have shown that various types of prior knowledge play important roles in understanding during text processing and have resulted in a new kind of model for conceptual processing, "procedural semantics." This paper discusses two types of units, or schemata, which,…

Norms for Air Force technical training materials were developed for seven previously developed structure-of-intellect and seven psycholinguistically oriented variables which have been used to assess the readability/comprehensibility of textual materials. Separate norms are presented for Air Force study guides, manuals, career development course…

The development of a story grammar represents an attempt to describe the higher order cognitive structures that are used to encode, represent, and retrieve information from stories such as folktales or fables. These structures, defined as a set of rewrite rules, specify the types of information that should occur in stories and the types of logical…

Three informal measures for determining whether students can read the assigned text material are described in this paper. The diagnostic measures are the informal textbook test, the cloze procedure, and the informal skills test. In the informal textbook test, a student is asked to read a 250 word passage selected from the textbook intended for…

The major purpose of this thesis was to show that it is possible to develop a theoretically sound and empirically based rationale for determining the systematic introduction and use of vocabulary in middle-grade reading instructional material. A major portion of the research for this thesis consisted of a content analysis of six current reading…

This report reviews evidence that there are differences between oral and written English that lead to differences in the skills and knowledge necessary to comprehend them. Three categories of differences are considered in an attempt to derive specific, testable hypotheses: differences in the physical nature of speech and writing, differences in…

This paper describes an innovative method for teaching reading comprehension in a second language. The underlying assumption of this method is that a student who reads in his native language does not need to learn a theoretical system of grammar rules in the traditional sense of the term, since he already possesses the ability to recognize words…

Three experiments test the relationship between implicit speech and comprehension processes for meaningful material. (Author/AM)

Standardized reading achievement tests are at best a reflection of the prevailing approaches and attitudes toward reading and the teaching of reading. Reading, however, is a very personal skill; people read best what they want to read. (Author)

The purpose was to test the assumption that nonspecific facilitated learning of a second prose passage occurs in the situation in which an initial passage read by the subjects contained concrete referents designed to increase the comprehension of a difficult to understand second passage. Results supported the assumption. (Author/BJG)

This course blueprint was first drawn up in 1968 and was later coordinated by the Department of Russian at Birmingham University. Problems of self-instructional courses, details of a particular Russian course and why it had to be changed, and possible improvements for similar course are given. (SC)

Foreword to a series: "National Library Week, April 20-26.