Evaluates Phil Ritchie's research report (same issue) on the effects of direct instruction in finding the main idea of expository texts and using self-generated questions to monitor text comprehension. Points out that the most successful teachers of comprehension are teaching comprehension skills directly. (MM)

Presents three study techniques based on the Content Directed Reading-Thinking Activity that help college students organize, understand, and recall what they are learning from a text. (AUTH/ARH)

Presents a satirical view of the current literature on reading. Suggests that reading therapy inundates the student with theoretical constructs. (ARH)

Reviews the major theoretical statements regarding the contribution of literature to reading development, noting that they fall into two interwoven strands: the notion of learning to read through literature, and learning to read literature. Evaluates the empirical evidence supporting the claim that literature plays an important role in learning to…

Reports that story-type chapters with dialogues, presented to lower secondary pupils (N=546) before they read a bio-technical text: (1) increased their objective understanding in terms, bio-technical instruction, and sequences in a process; and (2) enhanced their subjective assessment of the ease and attractiveness of the bio-technical text. (DH)

A strategy to help senior high school social studies students overcome reading problems is suggested. Students are asked to use analogies to describe how they feel when they reach a difficult passage in their textbook. The students then use their own analogies to analyze ways to study the text. (RM)

Describes a technique that helped less-able fourth grade readers develop a better understanding of story parts and how they fit together. Explains that the technique also improved reading comprehension. (FL)

A second grade Title I teacher conducted a study on how to help students become better comprehenders and to see what strategies students could be taught that would help them to comprehend and recall what they read. Participants were in an extended day program; they attended class after school two days a week. The section taught by the…

Reciprocal teaching is a scaffolded technique based on teacher modeling, student participation, and four strategies that good readers use to comprehend text: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. Although reciprocal teaching originally was designed for use with struggling readers, this book offers innovative lessons aimed at…

Describes the Scaffolded Reading Experience (SRE), in which a teacher creates a carefully orchestrated set of activities to assist students in successfully engaging in any reading they do. Describes the SRE framework and how it was planned and implemented in one sixth-grade class. (SR)

Investigates the effectiveness for improving reading comprehension of a three-step paraphrasing strategy. Finds that the use of the cognitive strategy improved reading comprehension scores for all students, both with and without learning disabilities, in the experimental groups. (SR)

Reading skills of Norview (Virginia) High School students were improved by establishing computer-equipped reading labs and preparing English, math, science, and vocational teachers to teach reading across the curriculum. Strategies included using prior knowledge of a subject, discussion, group reading projects, and paraphrasing. (SK)

Examines the behaviors of children and their teachers across repeated readings of the same text across several Reading Recovery lessons. Finds increased monitoring, error detection, self-correction, and fluency. Finds that teacher interventions decreased and changed in substantive ways. (RS)

Compares the effectiveness of reading practice using computer software with practice using text-based materials in four community college developmental-reading classes. Indicates there was no significant difference in reading-gain scores between computer-assisted practice groups and text-based practice groups. Contains 13 references. (VWC)

Outlines what reader response might look like in the classroom. Presents four basic assumptions of reader response theory. Discusses ways reader response approaches to literature help students grow both in the depth and breadth of their responses to literature, and as strategic readers. (SR)