A study was conducted to collect information on college students' perceptions of adjunct guide material used in conjunction with textbook reading assignments in history and philosophy courses. The three types of guide materials developed by history, philosophy, and reading department faculty were (1) selective reading guides--a series of…

Outlines instructional implications of a theory of reading comprehension that holds that a transaction takes place between reader and text during which the reader derives meaning from printed marks based on personal experiences. (AEA)

Investigates the effects of verbal and pictorial advance organizers on science text comprehension of children with high or low prior knowledge. Finds that verbal advance organizers assist text comprehension of children with strong prior knowledge, while the addition of a pictorial component aids comprehension of children with weak prior knowledge.…

This article reviews the literature on the use of content enhancement techniques to help secondary students with learning disabilities to identify, organize, comprehend, and memorize critical content information. Content enhancements described include visual displays, mnemonics, advance organizers, study guides, peer mediation, audiotapes, and…

A study explored whether the use of a study guide would improve students' comprehension of content area material. Two groups of students in an eighth grade social studies class were involved: students in the control group received the usual instruction--the chapter was read orally and discussed in class--while students in the experimental sample…

The strategies of active surveying and active skimming are previewing techniques that may enable high school students to discover independently the macrostructure of expository materials. Research has indicated that advanced knowledge of overall discourse structure improves reading comprehension by serving as a framework for organizing new,…

A year-long interdisciplinary project sought to develop professors' available repertoire of strategies for guiding students' independent learning from texts and developing students' ability to learn from texts with adjunct guide materials in a minicourse setting. Adjunct materials included such instructor devised aids as study questions, graphic…

This paper describes the development of a reading and study skills course for law students at Brigham Young University. A study technique called the "FAIR Method" helps students look for the following common elements in all law cases: the facts on which resolution of the dispute turns, the action or classification of the dispute (such as assault…

Discusses research that indicates the value of prereading and postreading in content area reading; explains the encoding specificity principle, which is the basis of methods that present similar cues during prereading and postreading. Describes several instructional applications of this principle. (GT)

The Interactive Teaching Project was designed to test an instructional model to help students with learning disabilities comprehend content area concepts. This paper describes the theoretical model and the effective interactive teaching and learning strategies used, including semantic feature analysis, semantic mapping, and semantic/syntactic…

An earlier study found virtually no relationship between college students' reported studying practices and various tests of reading comprehension, so a second study investigated whether different results would be obtained with an instrument based on study strategies college students actually reported using. Scores on this instrument were to be…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 9 titles discuss the following topics: (1) a comparison of the effects of three methods of vocabulary instruction on vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension; (2) the use of an elaboration strategy combined with classroom…

Adapting the implications of schema theory to the practical endeavors of the community college literature classroom can be readily accomplished within the framework of guided reading activities that prepare students for critical reading and analysis of short stories. Guided readings focus on what prior knowledge/experience and what aspects of…

Part of a continuing series intended for use by reading professionals interested in understanding and improving the reading of adolescents, this report contains four articles dealing with subjects of current interest. Topics covered in the articles are (1) the effects on readers' recall of directions describing passage structure, signaling, and…

A study examined whether the frequent use of advance organizers in the content areas would significantly improve the reading comprehension of junior high school compensatory education students. For ten weeks a group of 16 students was exposed to the continuous use of advance organizers (structured overviews, previewing, questioning, and…