The domino effect of illiteracy can be halted if students are given opportunity early in life to develop a positive attitude toward reading. Research supports the notion that reading interests lead to knowledge, which leads, in turn, to increased comprehension. Motivational ideas include using trade books and literature as collateral material in…

A training study, consisting of three treatment cycles for a total of nine 50-minute class sessions, was conducted to determine the combined effect of directed reading-thinking activity (DRTA) and conceptual mapping as organizational strategies for college freshmen of low writing ability. Each cycle included DRTA instruction, mapping, discussion,…

Teachers should be making every effort to use approaches for teaching literature that encourage students to discover the meaning of a text for themselves, using the language of the text and without unnecessary teacher intervention. Therefore, rather than having the students be led by the teacher/interpreter through a work they encounter the first…

The Des Moines (Iowa) Independent Community School District Chapter I Reading Program served 1,850 students in grades 2-9. Chapter I students displayed gains between pre- and posttesting with the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Iowa Tests of Educational Development. The total population of Chapter I students who completed both a pre and posttest…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 26 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) individual differences in the use of comprehension strategies; (2) field dependence-independence and text comprehension; (3) automaticity of word…

Designed to present a historical account of instructional approaches to the teaching of comprehension as well as insights into effective approaches for the present and the future, this collection of papers is divided into three parts, concerned respectively with: (1) instructional research in reading comprehension, (2) the reader and the text, and…

Intended for students taking the English 33 Grade 12 Diploma Examinations in Alberta, Canada, this booklet contains the 70 multiple choice questions related to the nine selections in the readings booklet of Part B, the reading component of the June 1988 tests. The questions examine students' skills in: (1) understanding meanings; (2) understanding…

Two studies analyzed self-regulatory cognitions of students asked to study complex instruction texts; examined the relationship between self-regulation and performance; assessed self-regulatory processes during learning from text in detail; and examined how pictures integrated in instructional text were processed by learners with different degrees…

A study examined the reading experiences of students receiving remedial reading or resource room instruction in order to identify the similarities and differences in remedial reading instruction. Subjects, 78 students enrolled in remedial or resource room programs in six different elementary school districts in upstate New York, had their reading…

A study assessed the utility and effectiveness of two interactive computer programs designed to instruct and model effective strategies for reading biology and psychology textbooks. Intended for undergraduates, the two programs were developed at Indiana University's Learning Skills Center, and were designed to teach students how to: (1) identify…

This book is intended for researchers and teachers interested in literacy and concerned about classrooms as a context for literacy activity and learning. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "What It Means to be Literate about Classrooms" (Lyn Corno); (2) "Beyond Access: An Ethnographic Study of Reading and Writing in a…

The first part of this report reviews an extensive series of studies concerned with the reciprocal teaching of comprehension fostering and monitoring strategies--an instructional method in which an adult teacher and a group of students take turns leading a dialogue aimed at revealing the meaning of the text. The studies reviewed indicate that…

This document acquaints teachers and curriculum directors with the reading, mathematics, and problem solving indicators assessed by the Georgia Basic Skills Tests, initially given in grade 10. Students who fail initially in grade 10 have at least five other opportunities to take the test and must pass it in order to graduate. In reading, skill…

Children who have difficulty reading content materials are sometimes found to read fiction quite well. These children may not have the conceptual knowledge they need to relate the text material to their own lives. Children may experience difficulty reading content texts because they do not actively try to relate to and build knowledge from one…

Techniques and approaches useful for developing reading comprehension and reading skills in second language learners are discussed and illustrated with examples from German. Literature is reviewed on: the effectiveness of reading while listening, transfer of skills and knowledge from one language to another, the role of guessing in reading…