Concludes that an age change in the differential retention of relevant and irrelevant information, when questions are known beforehand, is not necessarily contingent upon a similar age change in attention allocation, as measured by the recorded viewing time. (FL)

"Questioning the Author" is a particular style of classroom discussion that tries to get young students (fourth and fifth graders) to actively grapple with the ideas they read about in class. It may be distinguished from other reading strategies by the following approaches: (1) it addresses a text as the product of a fallible author; (2)…

To investigate the higher level comprehension strategies used by children reading basal reader stories, a study compared the results of an earlier investigation of 50 fourth grade level readers' comprehension strategies with findings gained from 30 subjects using a sixth grade basal reader. Subjects were asked to read aloud from a basal and stop…

The study reported in this paper investigated second language learners' ability to analyze new words without the use of context clues. The study focused on how confidence and accuracy increase or decrease with prior knowledge of a language and how availability of reading strategies can affect confidence or accuracy. Three groups of graduate…

A study was conducted to examine students' reading difficulties from a metacognitive perspective by considering the content of their awareness and the control they demonstrated over that awareness as they reflected on similarities and differences in various types of reading materials. Subjects were 35 seventh grade students representing seven…

Sixty-six grade six students were subjects in a study to evaluate the effectiveness of a direct instruction paradigm for teaching children the reading comprehension skill of main idea identification. Both experimental groups (strategy and basal) and the control group received eight lessons of 30 minutes each. All instruction occurred over a…

The readings in this collection were prepared to accompany a report of a series of experiments conducted to determine what information readers, both skilled adults and children beginning to read, use when they read to understand a story. Titles of the readings are are (1) "Oral Reading: Does It Reflect Decoding or Comprehension?" (2)…

Two contrasting kindergarten reading programs (book-focused and letter-focused) were chosen for a study that evaluated the ability of the Early Reading Test to probe children's knowledge of stories as well as letters, sounds, and words. The test also evaluated the kinds of strategies children use to attempt reading tasks and, through interview…

Compares word-attack and comprehension skill mastery of 65 native Spanish-speaking upper elementary students in a bilingual English/Spanish program and 55 native Spanish-speaking students of the same grade levels in an English monolingual program. There was no significant difference in the word-attack skills of the two groups but the bilingual…

College students (N=180), in first-semester and second-semester Spanish at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, were each given a short text and one of five assessment tasks to determine if comprehension of the subjunctive is necessarily due to prior instruction in its form and use or can be achieved without instruction. Text and…

An intervention program, consisting of story grammar training and/or attribution training, was designed to remediate the failure of poor readers to use metacognitive skills. Using 42 fourth-grade poor readers in three different treatment groups, results showed strategic training produced dramatic gains in reading comprehension. (BS)

Discusses the Global Method of reading instruction, which is used worldwide and which is based upon the belief that reading is a part of a language-based process, incorporating all of the communication skills. Examines its similarities to LEA, as well as its differences, and explains its advantages as a content area reading technique. (FL)

Data were reanalyzed from a previously reported study of the passage dependence of reading comprehension questions being developed for the revised SAT. The objective was to uncover any gender differences in approaches to and performance on a task requiring examinees to answer reading comprehension questions without reading the passages on which…

Describes how Japanese teachers present written language using the observations of 40 kindergarten and primary classrooms. Discusses the process in terms of classroom organization and instructional practices as well as the influences of the Japanese language and culture. Recommends effective aspects of this process and identifies those U.S.…

The cognitive and metacognitive knowledge of a proficient bilingual sixth-grade reader who was Latina was studied by comparing her reading processes with those of a marginally proficient bilingual reader and a proficient monolingual reader. Four key dimensions are identified that distinguish the proficient bilingual reader's performance. (SLD)