This research disproves the hypothesis that less-skilled comprehenders are less able to take advantage of constraints at all levels of structure. Five studies used self-paced reading, meaning probe judgment, recall, and sentence and word recognition tasks to examine the effect of supportive discourse contexts on sentence processing in skilled and…

This booklet briefly explains the identification of people with dyslexia, the referral and testing processes, the development of an educational program for dyslexics, and the progress and evaluation stages of dealing with dyslexia. The booklet's premise is that today dyslexics may enter any professional field to which they are suited, once they…

A study examined the reading strategies of a "reluctant reader," a bright and accomplished fifth grader whose achievements had not as yet included a love of reading or very good comprehension skills. Subject of the study, a female, was an excellent student at a private school where whole language, reading and writing groups, and…

This paper explains two observation guides that teachers can use to describe emergent reading behaviors among young children during the children's interactions with familiar storybooks. The guides are derived from a review of research and focus on independent and assisted interactions. When observing children's independent interactions with…

A practicum designed to help prospective teachers explore instructional approaches that differ from their intrinsic beliefs about how reading should be taught is described in this report. Particular emphasis was placed on using the whole language approach, as opposed to the more traditional basal reader or skills oriented approaches to reading.…

This book presents an overview of reading/writing research, discussing specific reading/writing processes, instructional issues, teacher research, and directions for future research. Chapter titles are: (1) Alternative Research Perspectives (Sarah J. McCarthey and Taffy E. Raphael); (2) Reading, Writing, and Genre Development (Judith A. Langer);…

This ERIC/RCS Special Collection contains two ERIC Digests (brief syntheses of the research on a specific topic in contemporary education) and nine FAST Bibs (Focused Access to Selected Topics--annotated bibliographies with selected entries from the ERIC database), providing up-to-date information in an accessible format. The collection focuses on…

Of all cognitive styles, field dependence/independence (FD/I) is by far the most researched and has the greatest application potential to educational problems. Briefly stated, the FD/I dimension refers to people's ability to experience and interpret their environment in terms of a global versus analytic continuum. Field dependents are likely to…

To determine how procedural instructions comprised of text and pictures are comprehended and executed, a research review focused on (1) differences in comprehension and performance attributable to variations in the information's organization, (2) the format of the information, (3) the metacognitive strategies employed by the readers, and (4) the…

The assumption that phonological processes support comprehension guided two experiments in manipulating the similarity of the consonant code both within silently read sentences and between these sentences and concurrently vocalized phrases. The first experiment examined whether tongue-twisters would take longer to read than phonetically…

In the study of perception during reading, the use of eye movement contingent control of the stimulus display has proved to be a useful research technique. With such a system, it is possible to experimentally manipulate, in real time, the characteristics of the stimulus display that is present on selected fixations as reading is in progress and to…

This report describes research that focused on the comprehension and composition of simple texts. The first section reviews the overall goals and theoretical perspectives of the project. The second section describes the following studies carried out during the project: analysis and extension of prior thinking-out-loud (TOL) data, TOL and reading…

The reading objectives presented in this booklet are the most recent in a series that has included one set of combined reading and literature objectives, two sets of reading objectives, and two sets of literature objectives. As presented in the booklet, the objectives reflect the interactions of reader, text, and process rather than definitions of…

A study investigated the individual and interactive effects of both context and familiarity on the reading comprehension of both native English and English as a second language (ESL) readers to see if these two components of background knowledge would interact, and if so, how. Context or lack of it was defined by the presence or absence of a title…

Exercises are linguistically or content-oriented. There are three levels of silent reading: orienting, cursory and total. In designing exercises, emphasis should be placed on cursory reading. (Beginners have to concentrate on "total" reading.) Hints are given in acquiring skill in summarizing and excerpting. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)