Describes a teaching method that uses Molly Bloom's soliloquy from James Joyce's "Ulysses" to teach punctuation to freshman writing students. Argues that the assignment helps students discover their power as orderers. (EL)

Discusses recent research in reading comprehension, discourse analysis, and literary theory as it bears on the way in which the teaching of literary texts can be integrated into a general approach to the teaching of language as social discourse. Suggests a new approach to integrating language and literature in foreign language teaching. (SED)

Outlines a teaching strategy in which students use graphic organizers plus options guides to increase their success on higher-level thinking tasks. (DF)

Argues that new vocabulary words should be presented in concept clusters and related to prior knowledge to facilitate organization in memory. Presents a sample lesson for science vocabulary. (HOD)

This experiment explored relationships between seven to eight-year-old children's reading comprehension skills and inferential and constructive processing, and between verbatim text recall and ability to make inferences. Skilled readers were more successful at answering questions from memory, but less skilled readers' performance on literal…

Describes a "Talents Unlimited" program, based on the work of Calvin Taylor, that was used successfully in a class of fifth-grade remedial readers. Includes some of the activities devised by members of the class. (FL)

Examines the story comprehension patterns of good and poor sixth-grade readers across four modality combinations for input and output: listening-oral recall, reading-oral recall, listening-written recall, and reading-written recall. (HOD)

The primary question raised in two experiments was whether instructing fourth-grade students about different sources of information used when answering comprehension questions would enhance their performance on a comprehension test. The answer was yes. (HOD)

A technique for teaching dialog is outlined that provides considerable preproduction input and acquisition experiences through which students create dialog lines. The technique uses these steps: prenarrative activities, narrative, contextual expansion of new vocabulary, reading input, dialog construction from visual cues, dialog recreation, and…

Concludes that an age change in the differential retention of relevant and irrelevant information, when questions are known beforehand, is not necessarily contingent upon a similar age change in attention allocation, as measured by the recorded viewing time. (FL)

Addresses the problems inherent in constructing reading courses for the English as a foreign language student who is not a motivated reader. Proposes an alternative type of reading course, which attempts to cover these problems by taking note of some of the preconditions necessary for comprehension. (SL)

Reports on a study providing evidence that prior knowledge influences the comprehension of texts and that the effect is not because of contrived materials or other validity problems. (FL)

This publication is a transcription of a forum held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on May 19, 2006 on background knowledge and reading proficiency. This topic goes to the heart of the education reform agenda, according to the first speaker, Eugenia Kemble, executive director of the Albert Shanker Institute, the sponsor of this…

The purpose of this handbook, is to assist teachers in assessing their students in reading, regardless of the grade level or subject they teach. It is intended as a starting point on the journey to helping students become effective readers, regardless of the material they are reading. SERVE, one of the Regional Educational Laboratories, has…

"DaisyQuest" is a software bundle that offers computer-assisted instruction in phonological awareness, targeting children aged three to seven years. The instructional activities, framed in a fairy tale involving a search for a friendly dragon named Daisy, teach children how to recognize words that rhyme; words that have the same…