Introduction: The invisibility of research on information needs from the East and Central Europe in the West suggested an exploration of the published research output from Lithuania and Russia from 1965 to 2003. Method: The data were collected from the abstracting journal Informatika-59. The publications were retrieved from Lithuanian and Russian…

This study examined the influence of literacy-enriched play centers on preschoolers' conceptions of print. Subjects, 25 boys and 12 girls aged 4 and 5 years from 2 urban preschool classes, were systematically observed before and after 5 basic design changes were made in the classrooms. Four distinct play centers (post office, library, office, and…

This report addresses the nature of the knowledge people possess about word meanings, and how this knowledge is acquired and used in reading comprehension. The report outlines a "standard model" of word meanings which equates word meanings with critical features, or necessary and sufficient conditions for serious, literal use of a word.…

Offered in the hope that the information provided will be useful internationally, this book describes reading disabilities primarily in connection with special education in Denmark. The 14 chapters are as follows: (1) Background of Special Education in Denmark; (2) The Extent of Special Education; (3) Educational and Psychological Investigations;…

A study was conducted to answer the question, "What are the basic words in a list of words kindergarten through sixth grade students will frequently encounter in their reading?" The study was limited to the words the students would encounter in their textbooks (including basals). A corpus of 7,230 words was then analyzed by two raters to…

This exploratory study examines how practicing teachers perceive the function and use of study guides in their content area classrooms. Subjects, 21 students in a graduate content area reading course and 14 cooperating teachers in field experience settings for students enrolled in an equivalent undergraduate course, completed a forced-choice and…

A study compared the relative effectiveness of a direct instruction method for finding the main idea in a text with a method that combined direct instruction with a checklist that encouraged the students to monitor their application of the main idea strategy. Subjects, 56 fifth-graders at a suburban elementary school, were divided into one of…

Dialogue journals are recommended in this digest for teachers who want to involve every student in a literacy practice that unites reading and writing and encourages thinking and reflection. The digest first explains that dialogue journals are useful because they use writing as a genuine means of communication between student and teacher. Dialogue…

Intended to help teachers define critical thinking/reading and to unfold opportunities and strategies for critical reading, this monograph discusses some of the practical issues that teachers face and summarizes some of the philosophical and psychological questions related to the teaching of critical thinking. Sections of the monograph include:…

This research report discusses a study which examined the purposes of reading in six respondents. Chapter 1 introduces the six respondents of the study and the inquirer; reasons for the study are briefly explained. Chapter 2 presents glimpses of several observations of classroom settings. Chapter 3 covers the methodology which guided the inquirer…

This conceptual paper uses two literatures--the work examining the development of expertise in reading comprehension processes and the work on effective approaches to instruction--to build an instructional model for teaching reading comprehension strategies. The report assumes a constructivist view of both reading comprehension and social…

A study investigated what adults think about the nature of changes in reading ability across the life span. Subjects, 121 undergraduate students at two major midwestern universities and 24 non-faculty employees at one of these schools, were asked to list five or more skills which they thought were important for being a good reader at four…

Focusing on the process of reading comprehension, this book contains chapters on some central topics relevant to understanding the processes associated with comprehending text. The articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "Comprehension Processes: Introduction" (K. Rayner); (2) "The Role of Meaning in Word Recognition"…

This study hypothesized that altering a news story to conform to a more familiar structure might increase comprehension and recall. Subjects, 104 undergraduate students, completed a Media Use Survey, a questionnaire for collecting demographic information, the WIRE test, a strength of text schema measure, and a comprehension questionnaire. Students…

Broad literacy trends among elementary, high school, and college students can be determined from various reports from the National Assessment of Education Progress, standardized achievement scores, and the verbal scores on the SAT. When these scores are analyzed for the decade of the 1970s, one finds different trends for different age groups, with…