Two studies investigated (1) the ability of learning disabled children to perform tasks that specifically demand the recognition and production of main-idea statements, and (2) their ability to detect an inappropriate sentence in a paragraph. (PN)

This study compared 19 students with learning disabilities (LD) in grades 6 and 8 with their nondisabled peers on the free recall of science passages when differences in passage understanding and domain vocabulary were controlled. Results suggested that the poorer performance of LD students might be the result of the inability to understand and…

Studies the relationship between working memory capacity and reading comprehension in fourth-grade children and the nature of the working memory resources involved in reading comprehension. Shows that working memory capacity was a direct predictor of reading comprehension when contrasted with vocabulary and decoding skills. Discusses the reasons…

The extent to which students perform differently on recall, low-inference, and high-inference items on a reading comprehension test is explored in this research. Results indicate a significant difference between questions asking for recall and inference comprehension. (JMF)

A method for quantifying story retells, called proposition analysis, was used to study the reading comprehension performances of 34 learning disabled and normal fifth and sixth graders. Journal availability: see EC 112 927. (DLS) 927

A study assessed whether young readers might be induced to use a memory strategy. Subjects were an intact class of 25 fifth grade students taught to use text structure as an organizational strategy, and 29 students in a second class who received no instructional intervention. On three occasions, the 54 students were required to read a test…

Learning-disabled and average readers (n=120) from grades four through six completed comprehension questions under one of four treatment conditions. Results indicated that computer-mediated text was no better than off-line conditions in improving learning-disabled readers' comprehension. Attribution and metacognitive sophistication were…

Findings suggested that a deficit in auditory memory rather than cross-modal perception appears to be a factor in poor reading comprehension. (Author/DLS)

Investigated the contribution of two working-memory systems (the articulatory loop and the central executive) to the performance differences between learning-disabled and skilled readers. Found that, compared to skilled readers, learning-disabled readers experienced constraints in the articulatory and long-term memory system, and suffered…

Concludes that using a reading plan sheet and prompting cards helped fourth grade students increase their literal recall. (FL)

The relationship between reading achievement and ability to process verbal information in achieving and nonachieving fourth-grade readers is examined. Evaluation of verbal processing abilities indicated that achieving readers performed better on all abilities measured except automatic word processing. (Author/PN)

Thirty learning-disabled students in grades five-eight read several passages and attempted to identify and remember main ideas. Students were assigned to one to three conditions: control, monitoring and self-questioning, or mnemonic. The monitoring strategy was most effective for main-idea finding, whereas the mnemonic strategy was most effective…

Thirty grade 4 subjects were individually tested on a digit span test of working memory capacity (Case and Kurland) and the Reading Span Test (Daneman and Carpenter). The Reading Span Test was administered using sentences at a grade 2, grade 4, and grade 6 reading level. It was predicted that, as the decoding demands of the stimulus sentences in…

The effect of graphic organizers on 14 learning-disabled students' (grades 5 and 6) recall of science content was compared with that of students taught identical content without the graphic organizer condition. Evaluation two weeks later found no statistically significant differences between the groups on production or choice response tasks. (DB)

Comparison of 17 academically gifted and average intermediate grade students on the use of elaborative interrogation to improve reading comprehension found that gifted children had greater recall than average students prior to and one week after training, despite equivalent levels of strategy use. Results suggest the optimal level of strategy use…