This paper addresses the value and components of developing prereading skills to improve students' reading comprehension. Prereading activities are seen to prepare the student to both read and comprehend the story and involve cognitive engagement with ideas crucial to comprehension of the reading material. Teachers are urged to develop the…

A study investigated the effects of a spatial adjunct aid--maps--upon probed comprehension and free recall with respect to a text in which map-related information (macropropositions) could be clearly distinguished from more abstract information (micropropositions). Forty-eight tenth grade students were randomly assigned to either a control group…

The central feature of language is symbolic meaning, and the act of reading is a part of the symbolic process that characterizes human life. Meaning occurs as a result of interpretation in a context, not as a result of response or reaction. Signs have a literal meaning in a specific context, while symbols have a figurative meaning in an implicit…

Middle school students (N=35) who read and paraphrased an advance organizer prior to study, correctly answered significantly more lower-order study questions than did students not encountering the organizer. Middle school (N=26) and college (N=30) students who read and paraphrased the advance organizer constructed significantly better answers for…

A study evaluated the effectiveness of various models constructed to account for how children read and comprehended a story presented in a directed reading lesson. A commercial directed reading lesson was revised to introduce information related to the story and to help the children form a "map" of the central story content. Data were…

Motivational devices are useful in content-area reading because the content load of most content textbooks is so extensive that few if any students can be expected to understand all that an author intends to communicate. Many students who are inexperienced with the subject matter are unable to read the assignments independently. The recognition of…

The purposes of this study were to analyze the effects of instructional objectives as advance organizers prior to a reading assignment, determine if an advance organizer was more effectively presented with two learning modalities than with one; predict whether vocabulary or readability variables influenced comprehension; and determine whether…

To determine whether the addition of study skills in the teaching of social studies would improve the learning of social studies content, a study was conducted comparing two fifth grade classes in social studies for a period of nine weeks. One fifth grade group of 15 students was the control group and the other fifth grade group of 17 was the…

A three-part experiment was designed to determine the differential effects of using audio, print, or a combined form, together with an inserted organizational and attentional aid (mathemagenic device), or lack thereof, in a syllable lesson on the test scores of six types of community college students: those who were internally or externally…

Outlines instructional implications of a theory of reading comprehension that holds that a transaction takes place between reader and text during which the reader derives meaning from printed marks based on personal experiences. (AEA)

This discussion examines the reading and writing processes of persons with hearing impairments, particularly those leaving school and in transition from school to work. The reading/writing act is viewed from three perspectives: (1) cognitive science or information processing; (2) text organization and its functions; and (3) the processes whereby…

The human brain is composed of two interdependent systems, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. While the left brain analyzes sequentially the phonemes of our language and names or reads words, the right brain produces the images, feelings, and associations connected with the words. Current educational systems, however, are doing little…

In a study examining the effectiveness of story-impressions (a previewing strategy) on story comprehension, remedial eighth grade students were asked to write predictions or "story-guesses" based on a series of one-word clues (story-impressions) that had been extracted from the material to be read. Having written a logical…

A study explored whether the use of a study guide would improve students' comprehension of content area material. Two groups of students in an eighth grade social studies class were involved: students in the control group received the usual instruction--the chapter was read orally and discussed in class--while students in the experimental sample…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 27 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effect of a crowded or spaced appearance of narrative material on the reading comprehension of above-average and below-average fourth grade students; (2)…