Fluent word reading is hypothesized to facilitate reading comprehension by improving automatic word reading, thus releasing a reader's cognitive resources to focus on meaning. Many students with learning disabilities (LD) struggle to develop reading fluency, which affects reading comprehension. This synthesis extends Chard, Vaughn, and Tyler's…

Discusses visual perception, especially with regard to lighting, as a prime factor in reading ability or disability. Argues that research indicates that improved lighting can help correct reading disorders in students. (HB)

Suggests that reciprocal teaching (interaction of novices and experts in explicit, overt demonstrations of strategy use) is a successful way of increasing comprehension scores of students. Outlines the theoretical underpinnings of reciprocal teaching and reviews research examining its effects on comprehension disabled subjects. (MM)

Reports on various instructional procedures that were used to decrease the number of b/d reversal errors made by 10-year-old learning disabled boys. (FL)

A total of 12 kindergarten children participated in a study to determine whether children with auditory learning disability would achieve significantly better scores in reading when taught by the sight method as compared with the phonetic method of instruction and whether such children would exhibit significantly better self-concepts when placed…

Concludes that while any of several types of remedial tutoring was successful with fourth grade remedial readers, children who were merely left in the regular classroom made equal gains. (FL)

Six learning disabled boys served as subjects in a study designed to examine the effects of two instructional conditions on word recognition. In one instructional condition, students practiced reading exclusively in connected text (contextualized practice). In a second condition, reading in connected text was supplemented with drill on isolated…

The effects of vocabulary instruction on word knowledge and reading comprehension were assessed in three experiments. In experiment one, employing 12 "average" fourth grade readers, and experiment two, employing six learning disabled intermediate level students, word synonyms were taught to pairs of students on three consecutive days.…

The effects on independent reading performance of two methods of word-attack instruction were compared for eight learning-disabled boys of intermediate age. The students read orally in the Checkered Flag series for five minutes daily. After a baseline period of two or four weeks, the students received two weeks of instruction focused on observed…

Summarizes award winning research reports dealing with (1) learning disabilities and reading; (2) teaching critical reading in Brazil; (3) culture, language, school, and literacy; (4) the development of discourse-synthesizing abilities; (5) the acquisition of word meaning from context by high and low ability children; and (6) reciprocal teaching.…

The neurological impress approach to remedial reading was investigated in a spring session involving 20 children and in a summer session involving 24 children. Children ranging in age from 7 to 14 were paired according to age and intelligence and then were assigned randomly to experimental or control treatments. All were at least a year behind in…

This article summarizes the findings of research studies designed to improve the comprehension of expository text for students with learning disabilities. Twenty-nine studies were located that met the inclusion criteria. Interventions gleaned from the review were categorized as content enhancement (i.e., advance and graphic organizers, visual…

The major objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the skill-based Wisconsin Design Word Attack (WDWA) system with severely disabled readers, by comparing a phonetic patterns approach, basal-only approach, and a basal approach combined with the WDWA system. The questions were whether achievement on decoding words in isolation…

A study compared the benefits of phonological awareness instruction along with and without a phonics computer software program to improve phonological and reading skills in elementary students with mild mental disabilities. During the eight weeks of the study in the fall of 1999, elementary resource students were taught phonological awareness…

Analyzes two commonly used reading programs and indicates their implications for the mainstreamed learning disabled child. (FL)