More U.S. community college students are enrolling without the requisite reading skills to be successful. Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students are following a similar pattern with a little less than half requiring remedial instruction when entering college. College-age readers were the first population that we studied to learn about reading and…

Reading comprehension is a multidimensional process and a key component of this process is the activation of prior knowledge in the comprehension of text. This study utilized video clips as a means to anchor instruction and assist struggling middle-level readers in comprehending text. Participants in this study were 17 seventh- and eighth-grade…

Finds that under certain conditions topic interest and prior knowledge can influence developmental-college-student-generated questions and that differential patterns of question construction emerge in multiple-choice and essay conditions. (SR)

Describes two strategies (Yes/No...Why? and It Reminds Me Of...) that provide young or poor readers with the prerequisite background knowledge for interpreting a passage. States that these strategies can be used with all types of reading materials and can also be used with nonreaders. (MG)

Planned, individualized vocabulary instruction is an essential ingredient of developmental reading classes, and deserves special attention, since expanding word knowledge is the one area related to reading comprehension in which student progress can be directly observed and measured by the learner in daily or weekly increments. The two factors…

Two studies investigated the effectiveness of the A-Priori reading intervention program, which uses pre-teaching in an effort to provide at-risk students (who qualify for the Chapter 1 program) with prior knowledge before the regular instruction on the same objectives and topics. In the first study, subjects were a control group of 207 students in…

Based on the theory that learning takes place if the learner is able to relate new knowledge to something already known, the course of study described in this booklet consists of recording stories dictated by individual students and using these stories as a basis for teaching reading and creative writing to students from preschool through adult…

Suggests developmental reading courses that permit the student to explore the text's meaning through his or her own experiences, rather than impressing on them one "correct" meaning. (HTH)

Discusses three significant developments in comprehension theory (integration of information, prior knowledge, and prose organization) together with how certain innovative testing strategies can be used to match theory with format. Finds that six of the tests commonly used by special educators assess either a single dimension of reading…

Intended for current or prospective teachers of illiterate adults, this book highlights both some motivational and environmental factors that may particularly affect the classroom performance of adult remedial readers and the areas where the backgrounds, experiences, and expectations of teachers and learners are apt to differ. Following an…

Describes vocabulary lesson sequences that were used to teach sixth, seventh, and eighth grade remedial readers economics vocabulary from the newspaper. (HOD)

Replicates a 1977 study and reaches similar conclusions: specifically, that schematic interpretations have a high relationship to prior knowledge. (FL)

Investigates whether thematic organizers can facilitate generalizability of ideas from one context to another for low ability readers enrolled in a college developmental studies program. Finds that the thematic strategy facilitated transfer of learning. (RS)

Much of the extensive diagnosis, testing, and data collection that now occur in reading clinics is time consuming and unnecessary. Private and university-based reading clinics, however, need to provide worthwhile activities that support students' literacy learning while they consider the important relationship of instruction and evaluation. After…

A study investigated the effectiveness of using thematic organizers to increase the reading comprehension of poor readers. The thematic organizer was used to expand the readers' prior knowledge by defining the implied thematic concept and presenting relevant examples of that concept. Twenty-four fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students who had been…