A study sought to replicate and extend previous research which found that an emphasis on meaning in reading leads to better recall of lesson material than does an emphasis on accurate oral reading, and that the child who is taking an active turn recalls more of the lesson material than do the children who are following along. Six third-grade…

College professors in the various disciplines can improve their students' reading ability by instructing them to use reading to learn the discipline. First, professors can examine the goals of their syllabi (academic, utilitarian, romantic, developmental or emancipatory) in relation to reading, since most courses are predicated upon reading. These…

Basic theoretical assumptions support the contention that writing has an important role to play in the teaching of reading and learning processes. E. M. Forster focused on the product of writing as an embodiment of either finished or evolving thought, and Ann E. Berthoff emphasizes the capacity of language to generate itself and, in so doing,…

Intended for teachers of English as a second language, this paper treats the common problems instructors encounter in helping students improve their English language reading skills and offers practical exercises designed to enhance the reading experience for foreign students. Following an introductory section that discusses the particular…

Numerous comprehension strategies can be used successfully with both children's literature and a basal reading series to help children focus on written text during reading. One of the most important techniques is developing background knowledge prior to reading--the overall purpose of which is to help readers relate their existing schemata to the…

This paper provides a creative approach to developing literary understanding and writing ability in students in a college introduction to literature course. Eight assignments are described which pair literary works having some feature in common. A sample suggestion from the first group of exercises, concerned with characterization, is as follows:…

A series of studies conducted to examine deficits in reading comprehension skills of low ability, young adult readers and to evaluate computer-based systems that have been designed to improve skills deficiencies in comprehension are described in this report. The studies described in the first section of the report: (1) examined readers' use of…

Focusing on the relationships between performance, skills, and attitudes, a study conducted at the University of Arizona measured the effects of reading and writing apprehension on basic writers. Results from three survey measures and expository paragraphs and essays written by 59 college freshmen enrolled in a basic writing course provided the…

Analysis of several texts simplified to teach reading comprehension to college second language students shows that simplification affects both textual cohesion and coherence. Moreover, simplification restricts the amount of significant semantic information and creates a more transparent pattern of reference. The use of cohesive conjunctions varies…

Many learning disabled secondary school students have difficulties with text organization in both subject area reading and expository writing. Problems may include difficulty in following the main ideas in text, recognizing the main text topics and their interrelationships, or recognizing the subordinate and superordinate ideas and examples.…

A study investigated the relationship between prior knowledge, age, instruction, and the relative difficulty and importance of a text in the reading processes and knowledge acquisition of elementary school children in Belgium. Two groups of 42 students (10 and 12 year olds) were given a knowledge questionnaire two months prior to the experimental…

Written for researchers and graduate students, this book--a collection of essays by cognitive scientists, socio- and psycholinguists, and English, reading, and language arts educators--explores theoretical and research questions associated with the relationships among oral and written language, listening and reading, and speaking and writing. The…

To investigate how Mexican-American students constructed meaning from English texts when engaged in reading and writing activities, a study examined 12 fifth grade Mexican-American students who lived in a "barrio" with literacy in both Spanish and English. The aim was to tap the envisionments (text interpretations or understandings, and…

Investigating the selective attention strategy, a study examined the type of attention allocated to important information by good and poor readers. Also tested was the methodological validity of using a conceptual (word recognition) perceptual (tachistoscopic word flash) task as a means of investigating the types of information processing that may…

In an effort to learn more about the teaching of reading and interpretation of poetry, a structured experiment was devised whereby college English majors used a combination of reading, writing and discussion to study James Wright's poem "A Blessing." The primary aim was to involve the students emotionally in a poem. Students were…