J. D. Bransford's tetrahedral model of learning considers four variables: (1) learning activities, (2) characteristics of the learner, (3) criterial tasks, and (4) the nature of the materials. Bransford's model provides a research-based theoretical framework that can be used to teach, model, and have students apply a variety of study strategies to…

Intended to help professionals remain knowledgeable about current research in reading and to serve as a relatively accessible bibliographic source of research on a specific topic, this annual report summarizes approximately 1,000 reports of reading research identified between July 1, 1984, and June 30, 1985. The summaries are arranged into six…

Prepared as part of a series to help college students improve their use of study time and learning materials, this booklet presents a seven-step method for improving reading skills. Each section of the booklet discusses a separate step in the method--(1) evaluating reading habits, (2) providing the right atmosphere for reading, (3) using the eyes…

This study is the eighth in a series of reports from the Reading-to-Write Project, a collaborative study of students' cognitive processes at one critical point of entry into academic performance. This report examines the initial reading strategies that a group of participating students used to begin a reading-to-write task and the impact of those…

A discussion of authentic instructional materials for the business German classroom examines the reasons for using such materials, and focuses on reading strategies to be used with authentic German texts. Authentic materials' advantages include their communicative function, their intended use by a real audience, and their specific form. It is…

Offers suggestions for: (1) using new question strategies for improving students' reading comprehension; (2) using the novel "Clan of the Cave Bear" (by J. Auel) in a college developmental reading course; (3) using "Writing Your Way" (by P. Stillman) to encourage a love of writing in junior high and high school students. (SKC)

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…

Discusses the need for reader orientation to the text and procedures for working through discourse to encourage selection and organization of main ideas. Students can summarize more effectively if they process and reformulate the text first. Sample text and student summmaries are appended. (Author/LMO)

Notes that many students enter higher education without basic skills for understanding texts, and presents three strategies for framing and answering questions about text to enable students to engage actively with the content. (SKC)

Discuses the use of micro stories--shorter short stories--in the Spanish language classroom. Highlights the use of one micro story--Monterrosos'"El dinasauro"--as a point of departure for teaching literary reading skill to intermediate college and secondary level students. (Author/VWL)

Assesses the utility and effectiveness of three interactive computer programs and associated print materials in instructing and modeling for undergraduates how to comprehend and reconceptualize scientific textbook material. Finds that "how to" reading strategies can be taught via computer and transferred to new material. (RS)

Challenges the widely endorsed practice of activating relevant knowledge prior to reading. Outlines a perspectival (perspective-relative) view of reading and suggests that this view provides a means to make coherent sense of interpretations. Concludes that having specific knowledge is not the main desideratum in interpreting texts--the main…

Explores how the developmental needs of college English-as-a-Second-Language students can be met by placing them in a position of authority in relation to their reading texts, through activities that focus on the reader and the transactional nature of reading, which subsequently empower the reader and disempower the text. (CB)

A professional development model for teachers of literature (K-13) was conceived in the context of the current disjunctions between literary theory and pedagogical practices in the teaching of literature on the one hand, and a different set of disjunctions between teaching practices in literature and in composition on the other. Recent…

A study investigated the effect on reading comprehension in English as a Second Language (ESL) of formally incorporating four reading strategies into reading instruction. The four strategies taught were cognitive, memory, compensation, and test-taking strategies. Subjects were 29 students at the University of Alabama of varying language…