A study was conducted to demonstrate the value of a mnemonic strategy in remembering information from prose passages and to assess processing differences associated with three variations of the mnemonic strategy. The subjects were 220 eighth grade students who read four short fictional biographies and answered recall questions that were either…

An experiment contrasted the predictions of two explanations of the cognitive review process of the post-passage adjunct question paradigm. The questions presented to 104 college students quizzed either information high in the organizational structure of the expository prose passage or information low in the structure. The top-down-search…

Five experiments were conducted on the ways that college students processed ambiguous words in sentences. Two classes of ambiguous words (noun-noun and noun-verb) and two types of context (priming and nonpriming) were investigated using a variable stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) priming paradigm. Noun-noun ambiguities consisted of two semantically…

The main experience of an ideal reader while reading a text is an "envisionment" of that text, a representation in the reader's mind of the content of the text. According to this view the envisionment grows and sometimes changes as the reader progresses through the text, and the ideal reader not only updates and supplements the…

Thirty eleventh-grade students were the subjects of a study to determine whether a person reporting a high degree of mental imagery in reading would also score well on comprehension tests and report a positive attitude toward reading. Subjects were first given the Estes Reading Attitude Scale, the results of which indicated no significant…

The Fry Readability Graph was used to assess the approximate readability level of each of 23 selected instructions, publications, and forms commonly used by adults in order to compare their readability levels with the minimum literacy level as defined by the United States Office of Education (approximately the eighth grade level). The results…

Readability formulas were originally conceived of as being evaluative measures. However, if a text is being rewritten or revised so that it matches a particular level of ability in its intended readers, it is rather inescapable that readability formulas will influence the changes made. Tacitly or not, formulas now are used to diagnose what causes…

Noting that the use of all-capital print on microcomputer screens eliminates the configuration clues (ascending and descending letters that create the physical shape of the word) that help a reader recognize a word and read more quickly, a study was conducted to examine the effect of all-capital print versus standard mixed print on reading speed…

A model for the levels of social interaction between author and reader provides a framework for examining the devices through which the author engages the reader. An important aspect of this model is the creation of additional levels of social interaction involving, for example, an "implied author" and an "implied reader."…

Noting that one reason for the discrepant results found in research on reading difficulties is the variety of approaches used to assess reading and spelling problems, this paper examines two of these approaches in terms of their implicit assumptions and inherent failings. The paper first discusses the etiological approach, which tries to identify…

A study was devised to determine whether internal reading flexibility would be manifested by individual proficient readers, operating in the "rauding" mode (typical reading manner), and observed in a natural setting reading passages from textbook materials. Reading times were examined using both number of standard words and number of…

Research was conducted concerning the efficacy of advance organizers and structured overviews in aiding student recall. The research was modeled on a process described by J.R. Platt that involves refining experiments and testing alternative hypotheses. Four studies that gradually refined experimental error were conducted on the effects of advance…