"Inquiry Training," a teaching technique promoted during the 1960s, involves students gathering information about a discrepant event or puzzling situation, and formulating theories to explain the event. Continuing the work of two studies into the efficacy of Inquiry Training (subsequently renamed Cognition Enhancement), a more refined…

A study was conducted to determine if instruction in schematic aspects of narratives would enhance children's knowledge of story constituents and their interrelationships and to assess the effect of instruction in narrative schema on the reading comprehension of average and below average readers. Subjects were 20 fourth grade students who had been…

The specific performance characteristics of eight alternative cloze test formats were examined at the fourth and sixth grade levels. At each grade, 64 subjects were randomly assigned to one of four basic treatments (every-fifth/standard, every-fifth/cued, total random/standard, and total random/cued) and tested. Responses on each of the cloze…

The effect of pictures on reading comprehension under different levels of text organization was investigated. Sixth graders (N=132) read three science passages, presented with or without pictures representing text content. Picture condition was crossed with three levels of text organization. Multiple-choice test scores were analyzed using reading…

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between processing load and ability to locate text segments containing intersentence contradictions. It was hypothesized that less able readers fail to exhibit comprehension monitoring skills because most tasks overload their processing capacity. Subjects were 87 fourth and sixth grade students…

The purpose of this teaching unit is to improve the reading skills of fifth grade students, particularly reading comprehension, by increasing their knowledge about how language works. The three sections of the unit introduce the students to the concepts of context clues and paraphrasing (words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories) and give the…

A comparative analysis of the oral reading miscues of 20 average and above-average readers entering sixth grade was made in relation to syntax, semantics, and patterns of comprehension and grammatical relationships. Miscues generated while reading passages in science, social studies, mathematics, and literature were analyzed, and the relationship…

Presented in two reports, this study on reading comprehension investigated whether expository passages with adjacent-to-text activities facilitate the learning of reading comprehension skills at the same time that they improve comprehension of text content, and whether written feedback increases the effectiveness of adjacent-to-text activities.…

To assess whether black children comprehend more of high- than low-interest reading material, whether the performance discrepancy between white and black children is reduced under high-interest conditions, and to determine the degree of similarity of the interests of white and black children, a study involving 33 black and 33 white fifth graders…

The purpose of this study was to develop a reading program using dramatic literature, informal dramatization, and a series of related written exercises to increase reading comprehension skills. It was also the purpose of this study to determine if such a program would produce a more favorable attitude toward reading on the part of the students in…

This guide describes where specific skills are emphasized in the three reading texts (published by Ginn, Holt, and Lyons and Carnhan) used in the intermediate grades in the Stoneham (Massachusetts) Public School System. The four major sections of the book are color-coded and include phonetic and structural analysis, vocabulary development, study…

Writing samples representing argumentation, exposition, narration, and description were gathered from 52 fourth-grade pupils. Significant differences were found among the four modes of writing and among high, medium, and low ability groups, for T-unit length and clauses per T-unit; lesser differences also were found for clause length.…

Designed to measure the level of understanding of literal meaning attained by students in grades 5-8 through the use of syntactic clues within written standard English sentences, this silent reading test reveals a student's strengths and weaknesses in syntactic knowledge and thus helps the teacher plan a program of instruction. Reliability…

Designed to determine to what degree the reader's awareness of recognition of certain structural aspects of written English is a factor in reading comprehension, this measure defines four word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) in syntactical or formal terms rather than in semantic terms. Each item in the test consists of two sentences:…

This manual contains supervisor's materials and a tutor's guide to accompany CS 000 427. There are samples of materials that can be duplicated for tutor training and student instruction. Included in this manual are: (1) suggestions for subdivision of pages and adaptation of comprehension questions; (2) lesson sheets and review sheets; (3) record…