A three-pronged classification scheme for organizing reading research helps clarify different directions pursued by researchers. Studies are grouped under the following headings: (1) how readers comprehend a passage; (2) what forces regulate comprehension; and (3) how comprehension abilities are acquired. Exemplary studies in each category are…

Indicates that the way different languages reduce speech to script affects how visual information is processed in the brain, suggesting that the relation between script and speech underlying all types of writing systems plays an important part in reading behavior. Compares memory performance of native English/Chinese speakers. (JN)

Relations between rank of propositions in descriptive passages, importance ratings, and recall were evaluated in experiments using undergraduates to determine whether passage structure and importance ratings are necessarily related. Importance ratings varied with instructions, but subjects recalled superordinate propositions better than…

Describes an informal classroom study in which students tape recorded their thoughts as they read, wrote, and "conferenced" with classmates, and how they discovered the organizational benefits of using the recorder. Also describes the writing conferences and workshops that took place in the classroom. (HTH)

Use of cognitive capacity was measured during reading of text in six experiments. Results were consistent with a comprehensibility theory stating that when more meaning is produced in reader's cognitive system while reading a text, more cognitive capacity is filled by reading it. (FL)

Experiments demonstrating that perceptual identification and recognition memory both rely on memory for single prior processing episodes, contrary to common assumption, are reported. The balance between data-driven and conceptually-driven processing in reading is explored, and the effects of changing the subject's reliance on one or the other…

Subjects were better able to read essays in good rhetorical form with explicit structural cues than essays in bad form without cues and in deviant paragraph order. Differences depended upon whether the test evaluated macro- or microprocesses (global or local comprehension). Comprehension strategies involving rhetorical cues are discussed.…

Reviews the work of Yale computer scientist Roger C. Schank in the area of reading instruction and offers five reasons why his model of computer reading should not be applied to the reading processes of children. (FL)

A model of context effects in perception is applied to perception of letters. Perception results from excitatory and inhibitory interactions of detectors for visual features, letters, and words. The model produces facilitation for letters in pronounceable pseudowords as well as words and accounts for rule-governed performance without any rules.…

Investigated seven eight-year-old children's memory for aurally presented sentences. Used a recognition-memory task to probe constructive memory processes in two groups differentiated by reading comprehension. Results indicated the tendency to construct meanings was greater in children who scored higher on reading comprehension. (Author)

Outlines three constructs of text difficulty: text-based (objective), performance-based (behavioral), and a combination of the two (subjective). (HOD)

Reviews work on three areas of visual information that are available to readers: information provided by the conventional arrangements of the print on the page, by the features of each letter, and by the shapes of entire words. (HOD)

Argues that researchers and classroom teachers need not be adversaries and uses examples from the area of domain knowledge to demonstrate how teachers can adapt research findings to their reading lessons. (FL)

Concludes that beginning English-as-a-second-language students might be getting an instructional message about the reading process that overemphasizes the least useful aspects of print at the expense of comprehension. (FL)

The need for and the limits of flexibility in college reading and study skills instruction are discussed with regard to the diversity of student population and theories on the reading process. (HTH)