Argues that critical thinking and problem-solving skills do exist in primary grade students, that they can be measured, and illustrates how. (RB)

Written responses to comprehension exercises related to basal reading materials were collected from 23 first graders and rated on a scale extending from no comprehension to application or extension of information beyond the story. Results indicated that most first graders in the group were able to answer detail questions but were unable to…

The development of pupil behavior in the process of creative problem solving was investigated. A battery of pretests and post-tests (including written compositions, oral compositions, and open stories) was developed and administered as part of a program to develop cognitive skills. Treatment groups received instruction for 30, 60, or 90 minutes…

This report focuses on the development of general problem-solving skills which are subsumed under the general heading of metacognition: in particular, the skills of predicting, checking, monitoring, reality testing, and coordinating and controlling deliberate attempts to learn or solve problems. The report is organized in five sections: an…

Implies that instruction can help students improve in reader-based processing of text and that strategies for making schema-general questions story-specific are necessary for processing, storing, and retrieving information from complex short stories. (AEA)

Discusses nontext knowledge necessary for reading comprehension. Examines the composition of children's real world knowledge for ordinary situations. (FL)

An investigation was conducted to identify and compare the reasoning strategies used by above-average and average readers in reading comprehension. Findings indicated that both groups used various types of reasoning strategies in comprehension, but that there were significant quantitative differences between the groups in application and success…

There is little doubt that intervention research based on metacognitive principles has been remarkably successful in improving children's performance on a range of academic tasks. However, to build on this success, at least three modifications need to be made in the way metacognition is usually thought about. First, more attention needs to be…

AN ADDRESS FOR CLASSROOM TEACHERS IS PRESENTED WHICH CONSIDERS THE NATURE OF COMPREHENSION AND THE PROCESSES INVOLVED IN TEACHING CHILDREN TO COMPREHEND WHAT THEY READ. A REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH ON COMPREHENSION SINCE 1960 IS GIVEN. THE FOLLOWING TOPICS ARE DISCUSSED--THE PROCESS OF COMPREHENDING, THE KINDS OF COMPREHENSION, THE RELATIONSHIP…

Concludes that junior high school students encode movies better than prose, but that college students encode both equally well. (FL)

Describes some of the ways early adolescents respond to reading and thinking tasks and details the development of procedures for observing and analyzing children as they complete such tasks. (FL)

Hypothesizing that severely language delayed children lack sufficient understanding of causal structure to comprehend stories, a reading program concentrated on developing the causal reasoning of 10 children between the ages of 10 and 12 with a verbal intelligence quotient two to three years below average. Instructional activities in the…