The study found that instructing 13 learning-disabled junior high students in the necessary prior knowledge (information and vocabulary concepts) led to superior reading comprehension performance. Textually explicit text structure also improved reading comprehension. (DB)

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a comparative advance organizer in an oral format on learners' immediate and delayed retention of subject matter related to food and nutrition when controlling for learners' prior knowledge level. Another area of interest was to investigate whether paraphrasing the comparative advance…

Using sixth-grade students, a study examines (1) relationships between background knowledge and passage comprehension, (2) relative usefulness of certain variations in measuring available knowledge, (3) value of a background measure as applied to a teacher-directed small group prereading language and concept organizer activity, and (4) effect of a…