Examines the theoretical underpinnings of the 1986 American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines for reading, covering an historical perspective, the role of background knowledge, the process/product distinction, text types, and hierarchical and interactive reading models. (CB)

Extends an earlier study by using different materials, ratings for familiarity, and more stringent experimental controls. Finds concreteness effects in two experiments using undergraduate students. Suggests that familiarity and concreteness contribute separately to recall. Supports a dual coding theory. Discusses implications for text design. (RS)

Explores argument in reading as a touchstone to academic study, discusses some views of the sources of reading difficulty, and makes some suggestions that have helped college students cope with the quantity of reading required and get the most benefit from their reading efforts. Illustrates these strategies with example from undergraduate students…

Describes a project designed to make second language reading more pleasurable, noting how computers can help students achieve this goal. The researcher used HyperCard to create reading software with translations appearing in pop-up windows, allowing students to read text with minimal interruption. Students reacted positively to the software, and…

Students derive more benefits from attending developmental reading courses that are an integral part of the academic curricula (Maxwell, 1997). Colleges that pair their developmental reading courses with content courses achieve the objective of integrating the developmental courses into the academic curricula. This article describes the model and…

A study investigated the reading skills of entering students at the Open University. Just over 2,000 of the 3,000 students (representing 10% of all students taking courses at the foundation level) completed questionnaires that were mailed to them. Subjects completed 3 cloze tests, graded in difficulty, and a vocabulary test. Results indicated that…

One reason that university students fail to achieve optimally in course work is their lack of reading skills. The higher education student needs to achieve skills appropriate to the involved task in reading. Through diagnosis, it is possible to ascertain weak links in the reading achievement of students. For students to achieve optimally from…

Indicates that both good and poor readers who utilized material organized according to the guidelines established by the Frayer Model of Concept Attainment received significantly higher comprehension scores than did good and poor readers who employed material organized according to the textbook approach. (RB)

Describes a college reading clinic program which combines a college Reading Improvement Course and counseling sessions to aid students to improve their study skills. (EJT)

This study hypothesized that altering a news story to conform to a more familiar structure might increase comprehension and recall. Subjects, 104 undergraduate students, completed a Media Use Survey, a questionnaire for collecting demographic information, the WIRE test, a strength of text schema measure, and a comprehension questionnaire. Students…

Intended to improve critical thinking skills (and thereby the reading and writing skills that depend on critical thinking) through awareness of thinking patterns and activities, this textbook has three parts. Part 1, "Foundations: Thinking about Thinking," examines how our minds work as we try to make sense of the world around us and of…

Ninety-three college students studied prose material about communications. An experiment employing both isolated summaries and a study strategy was conducted to examine how mathemagenic behaviors would facilitate students' comprehension and recall of the prose material they studied. Some students were given material containing interspersed…