Focusing on thinking skills, this guide, developed by the educators at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School, is designed to help employees to understand more and understand better what they read and to solve problems based on that understanding. The guide is designed for approximately 15-20 hours of instruction for low- to midlevel readers. It is…

This study examined the cognitive effects of fraternity/sorority affiliation on 2,293 first-year college students at 18 four-year institutions in 15 states. It assessed the net affects of Greek affiliation on standardized measures of reading comprehension, mathematics, and critical thinking, and sought to determine if the cognitive impacts of…

In response to low reading scores among first grade students of English as a Second Language (ESL) in one inner-city school, the teaching techniques of semantic webbing and brainstorming were used to improve student reading skills. Subjects were eight first grade ESL students. Pretests were administered to assess student levels of reading…

A study was conducted to examine the implementation of reciprocal teaching with fourth- and fifth-grade students as they read their social studies and science textbooks. A distinctive feature of the study was that reciprocal teaching procedures were used in a whole-class, rather than a small-group instructional setting. Three teachers and 67…

Schemata based notions need not replace, but should be reflected in, product-centered reading tests. The contributions of schema theory to the psycholinguistic model of reading has been thoroughly reviewed. Schemata-based reading tests provide several advantages: (1) they engage the appropriate conceptual processes for the student which frees the…

The Arabic Proficiency Test (APT), developed in 1991-92, is described and details of its scoring are outlined. The APT is designed to measure general proficiency in literary Arabic in reading and writing, and in listening and production of standard spoken Arabic. Its proficiency rating scale corresponds to the American Council on the Teaching of…

A study investigated six aspects of the construction of meaning in second language reading: (1) meaning-making strategies used; (2) content and structure of recalls; (3) relationship between recall and meaning-making strategies; (4) differences in ways of measuring structure awareness for different text structure types; (5) differences in…

Based on the belief that effective literacy assessment is an integral part of literacy instruction, this book provides information about the aspects of reading and writing that can be assessed and how assessing them can aid in planning instruction. Each chapter of the book includes a "reflection" section intended to encourage readers to consider…

This booklet describes techniques for teaching reading with teacher-made materials to students with autism. A modified language experience approach built around the Dolch Basic Sight Word List is used, incorporating familiar names and words of importance for each child. Readiness skills are incorporated into the approach as well as an emphasis on…

Television has the ability to present information in two sensory channels simultaneously. Well-constructed dual-channel messages have great power to facilitate remembering and understanding, but poorly constructed ones have the power to confuse. Researchers' descriptions of audio/video combinations were compared with those of audience members and…

Practitioners and researchers argue about how reading should be taught, about what students should read, and about how best to organize reading instruction in the classroom. Diverse methods are used to teach reading. These range from isolated skills-based (intensive phonics/basal reading programs) to integrated, whole language approaches that…

This paper describes a project for improving the reading and decoding skills of 23 high school students with reading learning disabilities. The targeted population consisted of high school students in a suburban community in the Midwest. The project used Auditory Discrimination in Depth, which is a multisensory program that develops…

A descriptive study compared lesson plans from three groups of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers: experienced teacher; graduate students who had taught ESL before returning to school; and graduate students with no ESL teaching experience. The lesson plans were based on a textbook listening activity that included directions for listening…

This study examines the extent to which some students comprehend four integrated science textbooks and the relationships among their grade level, gender, school location and type, and ability to comprehend the texts. Jamaican high school students (N=160) were the subjects of the study which involved data sources such as cloze, comprehension,…

A program was developed for improving listening skills so as not to interfere with the cognitive processing of directions. The targeted population consisted of third, fourth, fifth, and eighth grade students in a growing middle class community located in the Midwest United States. Problems of decreased listening ability were documented through…