This article suggests ways that teachers can use videotape recordings to improve listening skills and enhance text structure instruction in the intermediate grades. Students develop story maps for narrative videos and texts and create organizational pattern guides for expository videos and texts. Lists of suggested videos and children's books are…

Illustrates the use of thematic fantasy play, or play that involves the enactment of stories from literature, in a kindergarten classroom. Maintains that thematic fantasy play facilitates children's development of social competence and story comprehension. (BB)

An observational learning paradigm was used to instruct five elementary students with mild or moderate mental retardation to monitor their comprehension of incomplete instructions. Although all subjects eventually demonstrated observational learning, performance varied depending on the type of instruction inadequacy. During posttesting all…

Describes how two metacognitive/study strategies (SQ3R and What I Know Sheets) are combined to produce one effective, efficient strategy to enhance reading comprehension. (SR)

Reviews research demonstrating a relationship between the use of comprehension monitoring strategies and improved reader proficiency; investigating the characteristics of unskilled college students; and supporting direct, explicit instruction in reading strategies and comprehension monitoring. Summarizes studies of the most effective methods of…

This interview with Dr. Candace Bos, a professor of special education at the University of Arizona, discusses the need for informed, flexible teaching when working with students with learning disabilities, and the importance of addressing phonological awareness, decoding and fluency, comprehension, and content area reading. (CR)

Presents a review of the literature on oral reading fluency. Offers a comprehensive picture of factors associated with fluency development by clarifying and refining the variant ways researchers have interpreted the fluency construct. Recommends research-based instructional principles that foster fluency development; examines approaches used to…

Puts forth Louise Rosenblatt's 1938 Reader-Response Theory as a dominant teaching approach in English education, with Rosenblatt's influence readily apparent in contemporary research. Asserts that English professors today can work the magic of the literary experience through the use of the Reader-Response Theory in the teaching of literature.…

Describes a comprehension-enhancement strategy for social studies reading, the PEP (Person, Event, Place) Road Map Instructional Framework, that can help middle school students with reading difficulties. The implementation of the PEP Road Map strategies with 27 minority-group students with learning disabilities resulted in academically significant…

A survey involving 14 students with learning disabilities in Northern Ireland primary schools found that WordImage, an approach that uses word-cards with sentences on one side and color picture-cards on the reverse, was effective in teaching word recognition. Some children were found to be more receptive to pictorial cueing than others. (Contains…

Examines issues concerning the learning process in the information age. Highlights include new concepts of literacy, including information literacy; teaching methods and instructional design, including global influences, faculty as facilitators of learning, and learning environments; learning to learn; learning strategies; the presentation of…

Describes a whole-class strategy called Imagine, Elaborate, Predict, and Confirm designed to improve reading comprehension and writing among middle school students. Reviews research and describes modeling, prereading, reading, post reading, and follow-up stages for classroom procedures. Includes sample lessons for science, literature, and social…

Of 93 undergraduates, 75% attended 2 lecture-based and 2 case-study-based training sessions, 25% were controls. Knowledge gained in lectures was significantly related to verbal comprehension; knowledge from case studies was significantly related to reasoning. Individual differences between comprehension and reasoning scores support the value of…

A solid, emerging research base exists on how to provide meaningful access to the general education curriculum for students with learning disabilities. This article uses examples from research in comprehension and writing to highlight the underlying features of these empirically based approaches. The importance of multiple teaching strategies is…

Conversation is a basis for critical thinking. It is the thread that ties together cognitive strategies and provides students with the practice that becomes the foundation for reading, writing, and thinking. In recent years, proficient reader research has yielded information about what good readers do as they comprehend text. This article provides…