Suggests how the "To be or not to be" speech from "Hamlet" as recorded by different artists can be used to demonstrate the possibility of many different interpretations of Shakespeare. (TJ)

Investigates the self-reported reading habits and levels of ability in reading of ten heritage speakers of Spanish enrolled in Spanish classes at Purdue University. Results warrant more explicit focus on form instruction and activation of background knowledge for heritage speakers. (Author/VWL)

Describes a generation-of-questions study strategy used by high-risk college freshmen enrolled in a reading and study skills class. Notes that the students were more willing to use the strategy when their feedback was incorporated into the strategy. (RS)

Examines the effects of sentence underlining on retention and recall. Finds that underlining helped below average students sort out superordinate ideas, and with review added, underlining subordinate sentences increased retention of subordinate without decreasing retention of superordinate sentences. (MS)

Investigative evidence suggests that "advanced" English as a second language (ESL) students lack (1) imputed English language competence in the context of reading and (2) the effective strategies of native language readers and of linguistically more mature non-native readers. Ways to help ESL students overcome their limited control of syntactic…

The hypothesis that attentional demands of word recognition covary with other measures of reading efficiency was tested with 27 undergraduates performing naming and probe-detection tasks singly and in combination. Findings support the assumption that attentional demands of basic reading are a source of differences in reading skill. (SLD)

Examines differences in reading habits of developmental college students with varying levels of reading proficiency. Finds that subjects spent an unusually low amount of time on academic reading and even less time on nonacademic reading. Finds no significant differences between high- and low-proficient readers with regard to amount of time spent…

Presents a framework for teaching the use of context clues in reading which contains 15 strategies (6 syntactic clues and 9 semantic clues). Notes teaching suggestions. (SR)

Investigates the effects of the Communication Skills Program on the academic performance of 400 college freshman students. Notes that the program is designed to improve students' skills in reading, writing, and speaking. Finds that student participation in the communication skills program has a significant positive effect on their academic…

Describes Book Dialogues, a teacher-student activity intended to help students learn to summarize, interpret, and evaluate materials they have read. (SR)

Discusses extending the "Witch's Hat" technique with the Problem-Solution pattern and the dialog projection technique to help learners comprehend and produce basic narrative discourse in English by developing awareness of the rhetorical structure of stories. Discusses benefits of the combined strategy. (RS)

Investigated the effects of modality, information type, and language experience on recall by foreign language learners of Spanish. Fifty-four intermediate and advanced level university students participated in the study by reading and listening to an expository passage, and then performing a recall task. The protocols were then statistically…

Argues that a fresh look at some aspects of reader response theories could have a revitalizing effect on classroom practices. Suggests that for students to respond to texts, they will have to make more use of what happens while they read. Exemplifies some reader response strategies through the author's own responses to a short story. Suggests…

Analyzes think-aloud protocols generated during reading to locate sources referred to when students made links reaching beyond what they read. Finds proportion of links to sources located within the text decreased and proportion of links outside the context increased over time. Notes students who increased use of sources located outside the task…

Compares explanations of letter-detection errors in the word "the" based on the unitization hypothesis (errors occur because the word is processed as a whole unit, and lower order processes are not completed) to the structural model of reading (errors occur because the syntactic function of the word pulls attention away from this word).…