Receptive and expressive humor was investigated in learning-disabled (LD), mildly retarded, and nondisabled students (N=54) from primary (ages 7-10), intermediate (ages 10-13), and middle school (ages 13-16) grades. LD students did not display increased understanding at later ages and had more difficulty with phonological than with lexical or…

Suggests that further explication of the notion of "importance" will benefit the reading field, at both practical and theoretical levels. (ARH)

The literature on metacognition and students having learning problems is reviewed. Investigations of metacognitive instruction to enhance memory skills, to increase text comprehension, and to improve written expression and math performance are reported. The roles of the teacher and learner in acquiring and controlling the targeted cognitive…

Examines the development of metaphor by using structure-mapping theory to make distinctions among kinds of metaphors. Proposes that children can understand metaphors based on shared object attributes before those based on shared relational structure. Results indicate a developmental shift toward focus on relational structure in metaphor…

Argues that strategies for overcoming reading comprehension problems should contain the elements of cognitive and metacognitive training. Advocates a reading/learning/study strategy which involves systematic and deliberate instruction stressing increased comprehension by demonstration and guided practice followed by independent application of the…

Indicates that (1) readers determine topic interrelations as they encounter new topics during reading, (2) better recallers are more consistent about inferring topic interrelations, and (3) better recallers are more flexible in their processing of topic information. (NKA)

Describes an experiment that examined the degree to which self-instructional training influences elementary school aged children's comprehension monitoring during reading, and notes that such training does, indeed, increase comprehension monitoring. (HOD)

Describes a study contrasting hierarchical and causal approaches to story understanding indicating that when the number of causal connections increases, the likelihood of summarization for both goal and other statements increases. Suggests that the importance accorded to a statement in a story structure is the result of causal reasoning during…

Describes 10 categories of inferences and proposes a three-step procedure for teaching students to make inferences while reading. (HOD)

Examines first- and third-grade children and college adults' ability to make excuse inferences about a speaker's use of an utterance and to modify those inferences appropriately upon receiving later information. Possible reasons for children's inflexibility were examined by varying the difficulty of relating the excuse interpretation and…

Several experimental studies are reviewed, the results of which suggest that students often fail to acquire an understanding of some of the concepts, relationships, principles, and processes that are fundamental to traditional high school course material. Questions of what it means to understand something and of how to assess understanding are…

Offers an instructional sequence based on the premise that the spelling of English words very often reflects meaning more than sound and designed to help students make use of this understanding in learning to spell and to increase their vocabulary. (AEA)

Argues that the reader's active transformation and recreation of the text and both the content and function are best understood within the context of the personal style or identity the reader is shaping. (HOD)

Discusses research supporting the instructional validity of three comprehension monitoring strategies: (1) summarization of text, (2) self-initiated questioning, and (3) differentiation of reader-based and text-based questions. (FL)

Notes that students' comprehension and interest increase when they talk about how to read, draw inferences, and answer inferential questions. (FL)