High school English as a Second Language (ESL) students in a 16-week sustained silent reading program showed gains in reading comprehension, reported greater frequency and enjoyment of reading, and utilized more sources of books. Results suggest that free reading is an effective means of literacy development with ESL students. (Contains 13…

Children (n=118) were administered a preschool screening battery 6 months before kindergarten entry and then 19 and 24 months later. Measures of phonological awareness, serial naming speed, and orthographic processing were found to make a strong contribution to prediction of first-grade reading. (Author/JDD)

Explores the validity of the reading comprehension skills distinctiveness hypothesis. Finds that results argue for a unitary or holistic view of reading comprehension and suggest increasing the time students spend in sustained reading of self-selected materials as a means for improving students' reading comprehension. (MG)

Reports on a experiment examining the effect of language in scientific text reading. Twenty-five Finnish college students read a sociology textbook first in English, then in Finnish. Five students understood a basic concept as defined in the textbook after reading it in English whereas 12 understood the concept after the second reading. (JL)

Explores the effects of the use of aesthetic and efferent stances in response to literature with 43 fourth graders, 47 sixth graders, and 40 eighth graders. Finds use of an aesthetic stance is associated with higher levels of personal understanding and the level of understanding increases with grade level. (MG)

Eighteen undergraduates were given a standard manufacturing textbook and 18 a text in which major concepts were expressed as mathematical equations. The mathematical text enhanced ability to recall concepts and apply them in context. However, transfer of concepts to different concepts was not affected by type of text. (SK)

Seven poor readers (ages 11-12) were trained in reading comprehension strategies using reciprocal teaching procedures in resource rooms and were instructed to employ the strategies in their homeroom classes. The combination of reciprocal teaching and transenvironmental programing was effective in facilitating subjects' unprompted use of relevant…

The relationship of print exposure, measured by the Title Recognition Test (TRT), to word reading and reading comprehension was studied for 36 reading-disabled and 49 nondisabled students in grades 5 through 9. The power of the TRT to predict word reading and reading comprehension is discussed. (SLD)

Error frequency and language competence of bilingual grade 6 students were analyzed to determine the effect of language comprehension in errors made in solving mathematical word problems. Results provide support for the linkage of comprehension errors to measures of language competency. (29 references) (MDH)

A study evaluated the effectiveness of contextual organizers for subjects (n=276) of three cognitive styles (field dependent, field independent, and field intermediate) during computer-assisted instruction. Findings were advance organizers were more effective for field-dependent subjects; postorgainzers were more effective for field-intermediate…

Fifty-six field-dependent and 55 field-independent students in grades 6 through 8 were assessed on reading comprehension tasks varying in memory load and cognitive restructuring requirements. Field-independent readers outperformed field-dependent readers on tasks with high memory demands and requirements for efficient restructuring. (SLD)

A method for making an intermediate language course at the postsecondary level responsive to the different professional needs of students is discussed. The first segment of the course focuses on the use of the language for communication, and the second teaches, through easily obtained instructional materials, the construction of specialized…

Attempting to increase reading engagement, a collaborative team implemented a year-long integration of reading/language arts and science instruction known as Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). Compared to traditionally organized instruction, the CORI context increased strategy use, conceptual learning, and text comprehension more than…

Examined masked-form priming in groups of developing and skilled readers (elementary students and adults). In a lexical decision task, children showed significantly greater priming than adults for high N (neighborhood-size) words. A gradual attenuation across age was not found. The results suggest that the adaptation to lexical density may not…

Investigates whether there is any difference in the degree of difficulty between subject wh-questions and object wh-questions in the acquisition of wh-questions by Korean learners of English. Two experiments were conducted: a comprehension task and a production task. Results show the subject wh-questions are much easier for Korean learners than…