Outlines the importance of a literature-based curriculum that encourages higher-order thinking skills. Discusses the reader-response approach to language arts teaching as a valuable instructional process, that emphasizes the connections between what is in a text and the reader's previous knowledge and experience, thus fostering higher-order…

This paper examines the dual coding hypothesis, a model of the coding of visual and textual information, from the perspective of a mass media professional, such as a teacher, interested in accurately presenting both visual and textual material to a mass audience (i.e., students). It offers an extension to the theory, based upon the various skill…

Sample materials designed to enable advanced learners to read more effectively for academic purposes are presented that focus learners' attention on the role of various cohesive devices in relating parts of a text. Discovery exercises applied to an authentic text show learners ways the devices can help them understand the text. (13 references)…

This article describes several techniques for structuring storybook reading interactions to best promote emergent literacy development for young children with disabilities. Techniques are presented for increasing the appeal and interactive nature of shared storybook reading and ways to promote children's awareness of naturally occurring literacy…

Listening and reading comprehension are seen as problem-solving activities, which require instruction in thinking skills. An instructional technique, reciprocal teaching, is conducted as a group problem-solving activity to teach remedial and special education students to predict, question, summarize, and clarify while reading and listening to…

Demonstrates the complex social nature of literacy by examining research on the influence of social interactions on reading and writing development. Illustrates these findings with examples from the environment and activities of a kindergarten classroom. (MM)

This article reviews literature supporting the relationship of emotional factors and success in reading and writing activities, outlines physical and language behaviors that indicate emotional involvement with success or lack of success in comprehension, and presents strategies that help children understand what they need to do to read and write…

These exercises and examples pertain to readability information presented in preceding articles. They are designed to help speech language pathologists test their intuitions about word and text difficulty and to see readability data from a number of quantitative formulas applied to passages across a wide range of levels. (Contains 8 references.)…

Serving as a source of questions for researchers to investigate and a resource for professors and their students, this book presents 51 essays that discuss where the reading field has been, is now, and might be going. More than 80% of the essays are new or revised from the third edition. Essays in the book include "Professional Connections:…

Argues that comprehension is a problem-solving activity and that different problem-solving schemata exist for different types of texts, both narrative and expository. Suggests that good comprehension occurs when there is a match between the author's schemata and that of the reader, creating a dialogue between the writer and the reader. (JK)

The majority of current college freshmen see no place in their lives for reading as an opportunity for intellectual or emotional enjoyment. They read only the most utilitarian texts--appliance instructions or road signs, for example. A teacher cannot "make" students read anything, but he or she can help them find ways to like reading;…