Examines the effect of key concept mapping strategies on reading comprehension and writing performance of fifth grade students using basal reading materials. Concludes that key concept mapping enhances comprehension of factual/informative text, but has no effect on written composition. Finds that literary mapping strategies enhanced neither…

Investigates the effectiveness of study guides (called Expository Passage Organizers) in improving sixth graders' reading and writing. Finds that such study guides, which highlighted the structures of textbooks, made a significant and positive difference in reading and writing performance. (SR)

A study examined the effect of using mapping as a mediating strategy to produce written summaries and improve comprehension of poor readers in the fifth grade. Twenty-three students from two Chapter 1 classrooms in northern Illinois, all classified as poor readers, were divided into experimental (13 children) and control (10 children) groups. The…

Studies 110 sixth grade students to determine whether the writing of persuasive discourse can be improved by instruction and the effect of reading on writing and of writing on reading within the mode of persuasion. Finds that ability to write persuasion can be improved by instruction and that students transferred knowledge from reading to writing.…

Two studies examined the effectiveness of the Multicultural Reading and Thinking Program (McRAT), in which teachers infuse higher-order thinking strategies and performance-based assessment into classroom instruction. Four broad categories of thinking skills are included: analysis, comparison, inference/interpretation, and evaluation. In the first…

Investigates the effects of explicit story structure instruction on below-average fourth and fifth grade readers' narrative writing performance. Finds that explicit story structure instruction positively influenced the narrative writing performance in terms of both quality and quantity of their writing. (MG)

A study investigated the effects of strategy instruction on the reading and writing abilities of sixth-grade middle-school students with delayed literacy. An experimental group of 10 sixth-grade, English-speaking inner-city students in the midwestern United States was matched on race, gender, and reading comprehension test scores with 10…

The first in a three year sequence, the study reported here investigated how knowledge of text structure affects reading comprehension and writing production. Specifically, the focus was on the development of an appropriate scaffold for teaching fifth and sixth grade students to use text structures effectively in comprehending social studies texts…

The second phase of a 3-year project examining the effect of a process approach to writing instruction on students' expository reading and writing skills, a study determined the impact of three writing programs that emphasized different aspects of a process-oriented writing environment. Data were gathered from 159 fifth and sixth grade students…