Describes some of the research being done by the Center for the Study of Reading, a federally sponsored center established to pursue research into the processes underlying the development of reading comprehension by children in grades three through eight. (MKM)

A study provided students with relevant background knowledge and tested the effects of this knowledge on two versions of a text. The two text versions were four original segments of text from a fifth-grade social studies textbook about the period leading to the American Revolution and their revised versions from an article in "Reading…

A study was conducted in an effort to better understand what assumptions and strategies students bring with them to the task of dictionary use as well as what knowledge they take away from it. Data were collected in three middle-class school systems in the suburbs of a large, Midwestern city. Participants were 55 fourth-grade students ranking…

The purpose of the study was to assess the feasability of teaching fifth graders to read through instruction in photography and the use of such student-produced materials as pictures, books, magazines, and charts. The 60 subjects, all of whom were experiencing severe reading disability, were divided into two classes of 30 students each. Both…

The American family has undergone many changes in the last 20 years, due to divorce, death, or separation of parents, parents who have never married, and mothers who work. To determine how well school reading materials reflect the changing American family, seven basal reader series for grades four, five, and six were studied. Three random family…

Visual representations of the main ideas of information text (frames) help middle-grade students learn from reading. A study investigated frame development by middle-grade teachers. Twenty-seven teachers worked alone and collaboratively to frame experimental passages that had been selected from content area textbooks in social studies and science.…