Two experiments comparing 114 good and poor readers in second and fourth grades as well as 26 college students found poor readers did not interpret spoken sentences as accurately as good readers and that their performance was like that of younger children suggesting a developmental lag in phonological processing skills. (Author/DB)

Defines the method of "think alongs," which are representations of a reader's process of constructing meaning. Illustrates how think along methods of reading instruction might be used in secondary science, math, or social studies classrooms by focusing on critical learning issues in each area. (HB)

The objective of this activity is to help beginning students learn numbers and practice vocabulary and verbs in an interesting and meaningful way. In addition, the game is used to improve their listening comprehension and speaking ability. (Author/CK)

This report includes data on the cognitive and affective behavior of college students who were given the tasks of interpreting and formulating Boolean search statements. Two versions of written point-of-use instructions on Boolean searching, affectively elaborated and unelaborated, were given to investigate comprehension, self-confidence, and…

The ability of 2 components, interpretation of a question and memory, to forecast the test-retest association coefficients of reading test items was studied with initial samples of 916 elementary and 949 secondary school students. For both populations, both components forecast the relative sizes of test-retest correlation coefficients. (SLD)

Examines information-processing differences among four types of readers differing in reading comprehension and speed. Finds that good comprehenders outperformed poor comprehenders on all types of tasks, but the results were less clear for the high- and low-speed readers. Proposes differences in working memory as a source of individual differences…

Theories of reading emphasize the cognitive processes and metacognitive skills that readers employ to read with comprehension and insight. Teachers are referred to a resource book, "Enhancing Reading Comprehension," and a five-volume series of coursebooks, "Focus." Each is described briefly. (LB)

Argues that student comprehension difficulties are often diagnosed as reading problems, even though the problem extends to other learning skills. Considers the issue of comprehension in the context of reading, and examines aspects of the issue that extend to teacher communications. Suggest ways to help students understand social studies material.…

This article compares two theories on why children with language impairment have slower response times when completing linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks. First, the slowing is due to difficulty with a particular cognitive processes and second, the slowing is due to a general cognitive processing limitation. Clinical implications are discussed.…

Two studies were conducted to investigate the specificity of the relationship between preschoolers' emerging executive functioning skills and false belief understanding. Study 1 (N=44) showed that 3- to 5-year-olds' performance on an executive functioning task that required selective suppression of actions predicted performance on false belief…

In this article, the authors explore the concept of instructional scaffolding as it applies to facilitating students' reading comprehension. They argue that scaffolding is a highly flexible and adaptable model of instruction that supports students as they acquire both basic skills and higher order thinking processes, allows for explicit…

Students are often asked to integrate information derived from reading multiple documents into a consistent story or model. Based on models of comprehending individual text, we predict that the structure and accessibility of earlier texts should influence one's ability to integrate a new text with previously learned material. In two experiments,…

Recognizing similarities between our relationship to music and to other people reveals significant educational implications. Emotional responses are inseparable from the understanding which is a necessary condition for any fully educational activity. This brings out the importance of reasoning in music education. Such importance is usually…

This study was designed to examine factors associated with literal interpretations of homonyms. Participants were 212 second graders, ages 7;0-8;11, who listened to a story containing 16 key words. The key words were homonymous words ("pseudo-homonyms"), nonsense words, or familiar words used accurately. While listening to the story, children…

Purpose: This study investigated whether phonological or semantic encoding cues promoted better word learning for children with specific language impairment (SLI) and whether this treatment differentially affected children with SLI and normal language (NL). Method: Twenty-four preschoolers ages 4;0 (years;months) to 5;11 with SLI and 24 age- and…