This study was designed to establish the generalizability of the claimed effectiveness of several prereading instructions in enhancing either specific types of comprehension or overall comprehension. (HOD)

Presents guidelines that enable classroom teachers to help mildly handicapped students develop two types of text lookback strategies and offers a series of explicit teaching activities that emphasize direct, student-centered instruction. (HOD)

ReQuest is a reciprocal questioning technique in which the teacher serves as a model of questioning behavior for the student. Following a briefing period by the teacher, the activity begins with the student and teacher silently reading the first sentence of a story. Teacher and student exchange questions on a sentence-by-sentence reading of the…

Describes a comprehension questioning strategy, based on R. Stauffer's Directed Reading-Thinking Activity, that enhances students' use of reasoning on the basis of prior knowledge. (FL)

Suggests applying questioning strategies based on literal, interpretive, and applied levels to reading assignments. (MKM)

The increased interest in reading comprehension by researchers in fields other than reading education is noted in this paper. In addition, the concerns of the new researchers in reading are described, some of the terms they are using are explained, and the implications of their findings for reading instruction are explored. The interests of…

Presents a qualitative analysis of a transcript of a critical-thinking reading lesson designed for sixth grade students. The analysis illustrates the relationship between critical thinking and reading comprehension and demonstrates that critical thinking can be promoted in everyday classroom instruction using regular classroom materials. (JD)

The following assumptions motivated this monograph's analysis of commercial based reading programs: (1) basals represent the state of the art in reading instruction; (2) to offer suggestions for improvement of instruction, existing practices must be understood in detail; and (3) information about instruction contained in the literature at large or…

Discusses research that indicates the value of prereading and postreading in content area reading; explains the encoding specificity principle, which is the basis of methods that present similar cues during prereading and postreading. Describes several instructional applications of this principle. (GT)

Two of the most widely used reading programs in the country, the 1976 Houghton Mifflin Reading Series and the 1976 Ginn Reading 720 Series, are analyzed in this volume to determine the methods they suggest for teaching reading comprehension. Eight sections contain the following information: (1) a short description of some of the surface features…

Examines the theoretical and research perspectives (including metacognition, schema theory, and text structure) related to the direct instruction of comprehension at the college level for developmental readers. Concludes that many such strategies are not grounded in solid research bases and recommends that future research focus on the…

Focusing on reading comprehension instruction at the word, sentence, paragraph, and larger unit levels, the articles in this volume were drawn from a variety of sources. The three articles in the first section deal with theoretical bases and conceptual concerns. Specific topics covered include the argument for a discourse analysis model, the…