A primary-grade-level instrument was developed to measure thinking prerequisites to reading comprehension. Levels of responses are identified as either perceptual or conceptual; the ability to synthesize concepts from several sources and make generalizations is also measured. Analyses of partial construct validity, of cross-form reliability, and…

The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of ninth-grade slow readers with ninth-grade good readers and with sixth grade readers on a test of syntactic comprehension. The significant difference between the ninth-grade good readers' and the ninth-grade slow readers' performance on A Test of Sentence Meaning (ATSM), developed by…

This issue of the "Arizona English Bulletin" provides ideas, suggests materials, and discusses techniques that may prove useful to English teachers who are also responsible for teaching intermediate, junior, and senior high school students how to read. The contents include "Reading, Language, and Thinking,""A Good English Teacher Is a Teacher of…

Designed to measure the syntactic maturity of oral speech, the K-Ratio Index was devised for use in an investigation of the relationships between certain measures of syntactic maturity of oral languages and silent reading comprehension scores. Preparation for computing the ratio was accomplished by transcribing oral speech samples, excluding…

To test the effectiveness of the cloze procedure for developing comprehension skills in reading at the intermediate level, 189 sixth graders were divided into small groups or asked to work independently during this reading program, which lasted five weeks. The materials were presented both as cloze materials and in unmutilated form, followed by…

Previous research has indicated that children comprehend more of material of high interest than material of low interest, when each child is given a mixture of both types. In the present study of fifth-grade children, each child received either all high-interest material or all low-interest material. Interests were assessed using a picture-rating…

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)

Daily measures of reading comprehension were obtained for three learning disabled fourth and fifth grade boys in two settings--their regular classrooms and a special remedial setting. (Author)

The reading comprehension items for a revision of the Nelson Reading Skills Test were administered to several hundred fourth and sixth-grade pupils in order to determine the passage dependency of each item. The passage dependency index was used to locate weak items. (Author/JKS)

Describes the ways in which the published results of research can find their way into practical application within the classroom very quickly. (JM)

Reveals high awareness of comparison/contrast structure and low awareness of causation structure. Supports the hypothesis that structure-aware students are more likely to use a structural strategy when reading than unaware students. Reveals that sixth graders have some text structure knowledge and may be promising candidates for instruction in how…

Reports on a study designed to determine the effects of preteaching vocabulary of differing levels of importance to a text using two different methods of instruction on children's comprehension of basal stories. Concludes that, in general, the results supported the growing evidence for the "direct effect" of instruction on children's text…

Offers a step-by-step procedure for teaching intermediate grade poor readers three important text-based strategies that boost their comprehension of expository prose by stimulating their thinking. (FL)

Investigates whether the use of the computer to mediate text affects reading comprehension and concludes that computer-mediated text can influence reading comprehension and that comprehension was most consistently increased when manipulations of the text were under computer control. (HOD)

Finds that a story mapping procedure significantly improved fifth-grade students' comprehension, but finds no difference between a typical basal lesson using a discussion of oral and written questions as a review and a story map as a review to improve comprehension. (FL)