This 5-month action research project examined effects of a short-term interactive vocabulary instruction on reading comprehension with four intermediate grade students identified as having learning disabilities in reading. Participants read a narrative text and an expository text without vocabulary instruction and then received vocabulary…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of literature circle discussions on students' written responses. Two main research questions guided data collection and analysis: (1) How does literature circle discussion around one book affect the students' written responses according to a comprehension taxonomy? and (2) Do literature circle…

LD readers' failures were associated with a greater number of word recognition and vocabulary errors suggesting that LD readers were unable to extract enough relevant information to apply a successful line of reasoning. For related information see EC 132 758-768. (Author)

Forty-six fourth-grade boys were tested to determine to what extent their substitution miscues affected their silent reading comprehension ability and their retelling ability following oral reading. It was found that, while substitution miscues generally detracted from comprehension and retelling, not all substitutions detracted equally. (MKM)

This study was designed to establish the generalizability of the claimed effectiveness of several prereading instructions in enhancing either specific types of comprehension or overall comprehension. (HOD)

Finds that Japanese fifth graders' naming speed was a good indicator of the automaticity of the lexical access for both syllabaries and morphograms, but that skilled/less-skilled differences in vocalization latencies were greater for real words than for pseudowords for both hiragana and kanji. Discusses the applicability of C. A. Perfetti's verbal…

Investigates the influence of four types of predictions on the story understanding of sixth graders. Asks prediction questions, prediction plus justification questions, prediction plus review questions, or no questions. Analyzes retellings to determine information percentage included from original story. Indicates that differences in what students…

Quantitative results from a study involving 78 elementary students suggest that content-related attitudes do not significantly affect subjects' reading comprehension. However, qualitative results suggest that attitudes may affect reading comprehension in qualitatively different ways. (IAH)

Students (N=120) with learning disabilities in grades 6-9 were assessed on comprehension of silently read materials under conditions of adjunct questioning, oral recitation questioning methods, and middle/end and end-only question placement. Results indicated a significant effect of method and a significant interaction between level and focus of…

The study found no significant difference between 50 deaf and 50 hearing readers' sensitivity to contextual build-up as evaluated in a cumulative cloze exercise, using readers at the eighth-, tenth-, and twelfth- grade levels. Differences in the number of deaf and hearing readers' responses were found at the fourth- and sixth-grade levels.…

Investigates the effect of informing remedial readers that strategy use (such as looking for the main idea) improves performance on their self-efficacy and comprehension skills. Finds increased self-efficacy and comprehension skills, and suggests that remedial readers need multiple sources of strategy value information. (RS)

Results of two experiments involving 206 upper elementary school students supported the hypothesis that less-skilled readers suffer working memory deficits that contribute to comprehension problems independent of their problems in phonological coding. Results also suggest that constraints in an executive system may contribute to reading…

The influence of reading comprehension level on solving verbally expressed arithmetic problems was studied with 12 students (ages 8 to 12) who were prelingually and profoundly deaf. Reading comprehension level was related to students' problem-solving level. Verbal arithmetic problems contained linguistic forms that were difficult for deaf…

Investigates the efficacy of a metacognitive instructional strategy for use with basal readers in improving reading comprehension, strategy use, and attitude toward reading. Finds that children can be taught how to use metacognitive reading strategies and techniques during basal reading instruction. (RS)

Investigates the effects of an experimental set of reading lessons focusing on strategies applied to social studies textbook material. Finds that, in three of four comparisons, students receiving weekly strategy lessons were better at summarizing social studies material than were control subjects. Finds no differences between groups in terms of…