Reports on a study of first-year college students who received instruction in metacognitive awareness for reading and writing. Describes metacognitive teaching strategies such as use of reflective journals or "reading logs," in which students recorded their thought processes as they read text and wrote papers. States that analyses of logs…

Compares subgroups of Finnish dyslexic adults displaying, relative to each other, a distinctive combination of accuracy and speed of oral text reading in phonological and orthographic processing, verbal short-term memory and reading habits. Indicates that advanced orthographic processing skills might help a number of the dyslexic readers to…

Presents a method that involves the execution of a make-the-quiz exercise to inspire students to read for major facts and ideas in academic publications. Concludes that students take the instructor's perspective, internalize class performance standards, and hence voluntarily follow those standards in their attitudes and behavior toward learning…

Analyzes students enrolled in a college developmental reading class and their use of critical literacy techniques to improve reading and writing skills. Considers three areas of students' progress: reading and writing connections, language and vocabulary, and purposes for reading. Stresses the importance of introduction and mastery of these areas…

There is not enough substance behind a degree to warrant the ubiquitous belief that a stint in higher education is a "sine qua non" for success in America. While college diplomas may translate into higher-paying jobs for some, high school signifies little in the way of education these days, so jaded employers' estimates of the real value of…

Mapping (a visual system of condensing materials to show relationships and importance) is a strategy for reading which may be used by students in various courses throughout their college experience, or prior to their college experience. Mapping may also be used by individuals, small study groups, or in large groups. Mapping consists of four basic…

Two experiments investigated the effectiveness of reading backwards as a proofreading technique. Experiment 1 examined the general usefulness of backwards vs. forwards proofreading strategies and the effects of these strategies for two types of typographical errors: misspellings and contextual errors. Subjects, 36 undergraduate students at a…

Teachers and their students can benefit from examining the role of professional editors and their response to writing. The editor's role lies primarily in giving service to the writer, the reader, the publishing house, and the power of the written word. Editors like Harold Ross and Max Perkins have evoked the trust of many writers by making sure…

Ten graduate English majors responded to 21 samples of literary discourse chosen to represent Kinneavy's (1971) categories; the selections contained a total of 513 cloze situations. This paper reports the results of an analysis of the clues which the readers reported using when they correctly completed the clozed items. A 14-category…

Ten Graduate English majors responded to 21 samples of literary discourse chosen to represent Kinneavy's (1971) categories; the selections contained a total of 513 cloze situations. Only exact replacement of the deleted nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs was scored as correct. Analysis of results indicated that replacement in poetry was…

Contrary to expectation, subjects given a passage with neither paragraph cues nor an advance organizer recalled better than subjects given paragraph cues but no advance organizer. (RB)

Five experiments were conducted on the ways that college students processed ambiguous words in sentences. Two classes of ambiguous words (noun-noun and noun-verb) and two types of context (priming and nonpriming) were investigated using a variable stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) priming paradigm. Noun-noun ambiguities consisted of two semantically…

The techniques of chapter mapping, reading chapter keys, and "T-note" making can help a student overcome immediate academic problems and stimulate student interest in taking a more thorough study skills course at a later time. Completed chapter maps provide the student with several immediate benefits, including a one-page list of all…

IN FALL 1963, ALL FRESHMEN ENTERING THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA GENERAL COLLEGE TOOK THE DIAGNOSTIC READING TEST, AND FROM THEM A 110-STUDENT EXPERIMENTAL GROUP AND A SIMILAR CONTROL GROUP WERE RANDOMLY SELECTED. THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP STUDENTS WERE ASKED TO ENROLL IN A 1-UNIT EDUCATIONAL SKILLS COURSE, WHICH 67 COMPLETED. READING PRETEST SCORES…