Focuses on a subgroup of nonconcept-aware readers--children who have sufficient concept knowledge, but who rely excessively on the processing of the data on a printed page. Discusses the nature, contexts, and how to assess overreliance on data processing. (MS)

Investigates whether early reading comprehension is holistic or comprises different separate subskills. Finds that reading comprehension of early readers is holistic, closely related to general intelligence and verbal problem solving. (RS)

Describes the Inferential Training Technique (ITT), a modified cloze procedure and self-monitoring checklist focusing on the inferential process. Notes that this strategy improves reading comprehension and inferencing skills, and can be applied to content area reading. Provides a sample cloze passage, inferential questions, and worksheet guide for…

Examined whether age-related change in naming time reflects automatic access of familiar names because of greater familiarity with the named objects or global change in speed of processing. The path analyses and structural-equation modeling of 8- to 13-year olds were consistent with the second explanation. Time and age were linked to reading…

Discusses guided reading as an approach that teachers can use to help young students better comprehend what they are reading. Notes that guided reading allows teachers to talk, think, and read through a text with children, offering questions, comments, and prompts to the children to stimulate their interest and understanding. (MDM)

Interviews classroom teachers and reading specialists regarding their Chapter 1 reading programs. Finds specialists constructed their roles differently with each teacher, a lack of joint planning, different definitions of program impact reflecting different goals, and different philosophies regarding reading processes. Suggests that all teachers…

Studied 51 dyslexic children, 51 age-matched normal readers, and 27 younger normal readers to explore whether there are different subtypes of developmental dyslexia, and whether developmental dyslexia represents delay or deviance. Found evidence to support two subtypes: surface and phonological dyslexia. (DR)

Reinterprets the question of whether second-language reading is a language problem (linguistic threshold) or a reading problem (linguistic interdependence), using data from a study of 186 adult native English speakers reading in English and Spanish. Results indicated that neither hypothesis is wholly reflective of the second-language reading…

Describes an activity designed to introduce a group of students (or adults) to a book and encourage them to share their perceptions of it in a short time. Describes six books which might work well for this exercise at the middle school/junior high level. (RS)

A study involving four male beginning readers with learning disabilities compared the effects on gains in fluency of two types of mastery criteria. One required students to reread a passage until they demonstrated 3 successive improvements; the other required rereading until 90 correct words per minute were reached. Both were successful;…

Examined whether activating conditional knowledge about appropriate strategies for studying a text would enhance self-efficacy and comprehension monitoring in college students. Found that subjects in the activation condition outperformed those in the control condition on reading comprehension monitoring and on comprehension performance but not on…

Examined three factors that influence rereading transfer in children: story relatedness, reading ability, text difficulty. In four experiments, elementary school students read pairs of texts related by word overlap, content overlap, both kinds of overlap, or no overlap at all. Extent to which children benefited from word or content overlap…

Investigates the influence that instruction and the developmental stage of learning to read have on the reading concepts of first graders from skill-based and literature-based classrooms. Finds both groups exhibited high interest in learning and knowing words but that the literature group differed in their heightened metacognitive understandings,…

Suggests that "Johnny can't read" because of high testosterone levels in fetal development and subsequent poor brain lateralization. Presents instructional strategies based on the principle of factorized teaching for each of three discrete lateralization categories. Notes that the use of factorized teaching appears to have improved diagnostic and…

Examines the memory coding processes of skilled and less skilled readers during the reading of connected text. Finds that, along with phonological coding, semantic processing contributes an important amount of variance to deficiencies in the reading of connected text. (RS)