Finds that low ability and average ability students benefit more from reading plays than reading stories. Finds that the performance of low ability readers equalled high ability readers when both participated in group oral readings of plays. (RS)

Investigates effects of text coherence and active engagement on students' comprehension of textbook information. Finds a continuum of increased performance from original silent text, to original text with thinking aloud, to revised text read silently, and finally revised text with thinking aloud. (SR)

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)

Shows how a number of readability measures developed in English were applied to a textbook written in Hindi. Emphasizes that the more recent approaches to readability that focus on syntax, conceptual difficulty, and organization are a teacher's best help in selecting materials for students. (SR)

Studies revising strategies by examining the correction-sequencing procedures implemented by 48 elementary children and 48 adults. Finds three distinct groups of subjects: those who improved the text by using one of the model strategies, those who improved the text without using a model strategy, and those who failed to improve the text. (MG)

The comprehensibility, interestingness, familiarity, and memorability of concrete and abstract instructional texts were studied in 4 experiments involving 221 college students. Results indicate that concreteness (ease of imagery) is the variable overwhelmingly most related to comprehensibility and recall. Dual coding theory and schema theory are…

Studies second, fourth, and sixth grade students to answer four questions to determine whether comprehension of anaphora is a strong structural factor in children's personal composition as it is in reading comprehension. Concludes that students' reading and writing are correlated in the frequency and use of singular and plural pronouns. (MG)

The reader's knowledge about how a message is woven into discourse plays an important role in reading comprehension. This article first reviews reasons for student difficulties in comprehension, sentence groups, and sense units and then presents a basic discourse framework and its applications for analyzing text passages. (Contains two…

Story grammar is a recent area of research related to an interactive conceptualization of reading. A study of 70 sixth-grade students studying English as a foreign language (EFL) suggests that direct instruction in story grammar helps students abstract a story's episodic sequence and metastructure. Sample texts are appended. (Contains 21…

Studies empirically the effects on reader performance of reduced text structure in technical writing texts. Reveals that removal of cues to local coherence produced reliable decrements in reader performance. Discusses results with regard to questions of information design. (HB)

Finds that first graders who received direct instruction in awareness of four pragmatic language functions (heuristic, imaginative, regulatory, and personal) evidenced greater recognition and awareness of these functions in narrative than did uninstructed children. Implies that it is useful to cultivate such pragmatic awareness to promote…

Compares the effects of three different methods of improving reading comprehension: text-structure instruction, reading practice, and guided reading. Finds that standardized tests showed no one method to be more effective than another, but that all three methods had measurable effects on reading comprehension. (SR)

Traces the origin and development of a text-based computer-assisted language-learning activity, namely the shuffling of sentences of a text and the reconstruction on screen of that text. Emphasizes the elements of continuity between the first version, implemented on a mainframe computer, and the latest version. Classroom use of the latest version…

Tests for a channel effect by examining responses of student subjects to a news story presented in broadcast video and in print. Finds some evidence that viewers of television news are inclined to judge actors in news stories as members of categories or groups, while readers of print news tend to be more specific. (SR)

Examined age differences in the missing-letter effect during letter-detection tasks. Found expected increase in magnitude with age of the effect even when function words and content words were equated for frequency. Word scrambling improved letter detection in function words compared to content words among older subjects, arguing against increased…