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.…

A study investigated whether presenting scientific information about seasonal change in a narrative which is also a refutation text will promote learning of the information more than presenting it in an expository text which is either a considerate refutation text or an inconsiderate non-refutation text. Subjects, 123 seventh grade students and…

A study investigated the role of phonemic (sound-based) information during silent reading to determine whether the visual tongue-twister effect occurs only when readers make judgments of sentence acceptability or whether the visual tongue-twister effect is due to the way sentences are represented in memory. Data were collected from 45 university…

The current state of computer assisted instruction (CAI) in kindergarten through grade 12 is discussed. Four formats for CAI--drill, practice, tutorial, and simulation--are defined, and a set of criteria for distinguishing between effective and ineffective CAI are described. Comparisons are made between human and computer tutors. In response to…

Two experiments investigated the role of text coherence in junior high school students' comprehension of science texts. Found that text coherence improved readers' comprehension, but also that giving readers with sufficient background knowledge an incoherent text that forced them to infer unstated relations engaged them in compensatory processing,…

Six instructional design principles are recommended to enable students with learning disabilities to comprehend and compose expository materials. The instructional principles are illustrated using the compare/contrast text structure. Charts provide examples and clarification of the strategies. (SW)

Describes a system used for introducing expository text structure to upper elementary and middle school students through the use of narrative picture books. Includes graphic organizers for expository text patterns, forms for expository discourse, and lists of narrative picture books and of nonfiction magazine articles according to their expository…

This article discusses the reading fluency and comprehension problems of struggling secondary students who can read, with assistance, on a fourth-grade reading level or above. Difficulties with vocabulary and sentence construction are described, along with problems with pronoun reference and noun substitutions, metaphor, and conventions of print.…

Discussion of text segmenting and comprehension highlights a study of elementary students in Australia that tested two hypotheses, one concerning reading abilities and one concerning information processing skills involved in syntactic analysis. Tests that measured vocabulary, comprehension, and processing skills are described, results are…

Interviews with 16 deaf high school students and 9 teachers found that teachers underestimated the extent of students' independent comprehension of 3 types of text. The text perceived to be most difficult by both teachers and students was the most interesting to students (but not teachers) and fostered use of a greater variety of metacognitive…

Uses a cognitive processing perspective to revise fifth grade social studies texts, to describe those revisions, and to demonstrate their effects empirically. Finds that students reading the revised text recalled more material and answered more questions correctly than did those reading the original text. Concludes that a text-processing approach…

This research review focuses on the effects and implications of text organization, both physical presentation and text structure, and on reading comprehension, with special emphasis on the comprehension of diverse learners. The review includes students in kindergarten through college, who are high and low readers and comprehenders; low…

A study compared the comprehension abilities of readers when reading narrative and expository discourse. It was designed to investigate how middle-level high-achieving and low-achieving readers comprehend the two discourse genres, testing the readers' comprehension of main ideas in the text under both conditions. Also examined was whether…

A study investigated children's natural learning of word meanings while reading. Subjects, 447 American and Chinese children in third and fifth grades, read one of two cross-translated stories and then completed a test on the difficult words in both stories. Results indicated: (1) significant incidental learning of word meanings in both grades in…

A practicum was conducted to improve reading comprehension in classroom performance with the basal reading series and on norm-referenced tests. Subjects included a fifth-grade class of 28 students who were paired with another fifth-grade class as peer teachers. New skills were taught and practiced with the target population early in the week. On…