Examines the role of the teacher in enhancing students' reading comprehension. Finds that the teacher is a more significant factor in the comprehension of lengthy natural texts than is the ease of the text itself. (MG)

Challenges the widely endorsed practice of activating relevant knowledge prior to reading. Outlines a perspectival (perspective-relative) view of reading and suggests that this view provides a means to make coherent sense of interpretations. Concludes that having specific knowledge is not the main desideratum in interpreting texts--the main…

This paper reviews the literature on the impact of technology on reading instruction, with a specific focus on language development as enhanced by the use of CD-Rom programs. The paper cites a study in which two separate groups, preschool children and third graders, were asked to talk about a story they listened to and saw on CD-Rom, providing…

Reading is construed as operating within the dynamics of the relationship of reader, text, context, and language system. Context is understood as the cultural and situational environment of the text, itself a semantic unit that is an instance of the language system. A related variable for reading is the awareness of the reader of the language…

Intended for elementary teachers, reading specialists, curriculum directors, and teacher trainers, this book provides readers with conceptual and theoretical insights and compelling accounts of classroom practice. The book argues that teaching and learning work best when they occur within a community of learners. The book provides interpretations…

Narrowly defining reading as a list of skills dealing with word attack and letter sounds is potentially crippling to readers, because it limits the instruction provided by those who write literature--authors, who, in creating text, create meaning. The nature of reading instruction should not structure the ways human beings come to deal with…

Focusing on the need to offer and encourage the experience of reading literature in elementary schools, the essays in this book (1) explicate the range of theory known as reader-response criticism; (2) argue its distinctive relevance to the needs of young, developing readers; and (3) indicate how classroom practices might be changed to accommodate…

Current theories of reading are concerned with the nature of the "means" for achieving goals--processing components, paths, practices, and strategies. If reading is understood as text-oriented cultural activities, a continuum of text use can be formulated with enabling texts (those that enable the reader to do something) at one end and…

Reading comprehension can be more effectively taught using new instructional frameworks--such as explicit comprehension instruction--rather than the basal reading model. Traditionally, comprehension has been taught through a process of mentioning the skill that students should apply, practicing the skill in workbooks, and assessing student…

The purpose of this book is to provide teachers of literature with a sampling of a wide range of theoretical backgrounds and possible pedagogical applications for reading, writing, and interpreting literature in school classrooms, elementary through college. The book contains the following essays listed with their authors: (1) "Henny Penny to…

Considers current research on reading in a second language from five points of view: (1) the reader's role in light of new models of language and textual meaning; (2) revised definitions of textual meaning and reader processing; (3) reader processing of schemata; (4) relationship between second-language competency and reader strategies; and (5)…

This empirically-based model depicts the interactive, constructivist process of reading and three classes of variables that influence reading. Teacher variables include presentation, instructional intervention, instructional climate, and behavior management. Text variables include text language, relevance, organization, story structures, and…

Lists possible "writing-as-performance" course objectives, all of which emphasize vocalization and movement while writing to encourage the fullest range of somatic response; describes four sample class assignments; notes that these courses bring students to a fuller appreciation of the reader/writer relationship in literary experience.…

Reports on participant-observation in a third- and fourth-grade classroom in which students learned to read science texts with both "efferent" and "aesthetic" reading processes. (HTH)

Noting that children evaluate their reading comprehension more effectively when they are informed about the standards of evaluation they should use, a study examined whether training in the use of certain standards would show generalization from one level of processing to the other, and also maintenance of standard use. The study also examined…