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…

A study compared student performance on language-usage test items embedded in a passage when the location of the answer was varied. American College Testing (ACT) Assessment experimental units were constructed that presented 35 items whose sequence of foils was varied so that each foil appeared once as the "no change" option embedded in…

Five deaf students, aged 11-12, participated in an instructional program using metacognitive strategies to teach summarization skills based on a knowledge of story structure. During intervention, the subjects' performance rose noticeably, and the level of performance was maintained in three subjects. (Author/JDD)

Sharing the wisdom of educators throughout Colorado in implementing the Colorado Basic Literacy Act, this book is intended to be a practical complement to teachers' repertoire. It offers ideas for immediate implementation, along with citations of current research and references, and represents the best ways to respond to the needs of struggling…

Teaching college students to discriminate among and use text structures found in scientific text material was studied, using 32 undergraduate and 28 junior college students. Students can learn to become more effective processors of scientific text through acquiring active reading strategies based on domain specific knowledge. (SLD)

Asserts that humanities computing techniques and methodologies remain marginal to mainstream literary scholarship. Argues for large scale analyses of text databases that would incorporate a shift in theoretical orientation to include greater stress on intertextuality and sign theory. (CFR)

Reviews research literature on the design of text for older readers. Topics include improving typographically simple layouts through the use of larger type, more readable text, clearer layouts, and summaries, headings and signals; and improving typographically complex texts such as income tax forms, diagrams, and procedural instructions. (31…

Discusses the growth of distance education courses and presents a checklist of 25 course design principles that faculty can use to critique or evaluate their Web-based online course sites. Highlights include authority; bias; citations; graphics; help systems; student performance records; links; multimedia; navigation; printing; site structure; and…

Bernhardt (2003) claims that half of the variance in second language (L2) reading is accounted for by first language literacy (20%) and second language knowledge (30%), and that one of the central goals of current L2 reading research should be to investigate the 50% of variance that remains unexplained. Part of this variance takes consists of…

This practical book integrates coverage of the writing process and various types of academic and professional documents with explanations and examples of using computers to enhance the process and produce effective documents. The book's four parts move from the individual writer who is using a computer to create a document to exchanges of data and…

Possible adaptations of textbooks for children with learning disabilities include modifying the textbook (tape recording the text, using high-interest low-vocabulary materials); altering instructional procedures (teaching textbook structure, previewing, providing advance organizers, preteaching critical vocabulary); and teaching textbook reading…

Investigated is a reader's ability to comprehend written text that is highly novel with few semantic cues. The theoretical perspective, assessment theory, materials and methods, and the results of this study are discussed. (KR)