This book presents a description of language arts instruction that advocates language learning that is incorporated throughout the curriculum. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "Language Arts and the Beginnings of Language"; (2) "A Literature Foundation"; (3) "Composing and Comprehending via Literature";…

Attempting to present empathy as a vital ingredient of effective interpersonal listening, this paper first provides a brief historical tracing of the major trends in listening theory and research. This review then serves as a backdrop for a partial justification of an empathic listening emphasis that includes a clarification of some misconceptions…

A study investigated the use of the semantic webbing technique to improve reading comprehension. The model of a web consists of the core question, the web strands, the supports of the strand, and the strand ties. Subjects, 25 third graders and 26 fourth graders, were assigned to reading ability groups based on past performance, informal testing…

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether a meaning emphasis or a word identification emphasis would give better results in a third grade reading lesson. The results investigated more than 30 factors and their two-way interactions. In the first experiment, 259 children were placed into reading groups arranged either homogeneously or…

An experimental program was undertaken to determine the effects of attitude and reading achievement on writing, to ascertain if intervention could improve writing achievement and attitude, and to predict success in the program on the basis of an attitude inventory that measured need for structure and tolerance of ambiguity. Subjects were 15 boys…

A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of background knowledge on overall comprehension and comprehension of new information in adult beginning readers. In the study, 40 Adult Basic Education (ABE) students, enrolled in six classes in two instructional sites (one urban and one rural), were presented with two selections about unfamiliar…

The process of interrupting the reading of a text in order to predict what is to come is a well-established reading instructional technique known as Directed Reading/Thinking Activities (DRTA). Predictive intervention, a classroom structure based on this technique, is more frequently productive of creative revision than either teacher advice or…

Part of a research project designed to develop a theory of the cognitive processes involved in skilled reading by the analysis of the location and duration of eye fixations, this paper concentrates on how eye fixations can be used to determine when encoding, lexical access, parsing, and integration processes are executed and how they are affected…

A study was conducted to examine the effects of prescribing the use of some specific reading strategies on comprehension. The effects of such prescription on the interactions among instructional method and a number of individual difference variables were also investigated. Subjects were 140 high school students randomly assigned to read a text…

The current writing across the curriculum movement has shown educators that the process of composing focuses writers' attention on producing much the same material that reading exercises asked them only to recognize. Two taxonomic structures and a list of Scott, Foresman's reading comprehension skills may be used to help demonstrate the…

The technical reports summarized in this paper were prepared as part of a project designed to determine what is known about the teaching of cognitive skills and to formulate questions relating to such teaching for further research. Topics discussed in the 22 reports include the following: (1) teaching thinking; (2) Aristotle's logic; (3) a…

This study investigates the effects of meaningful-learning postquestions on recall of relevant and incidental information by two groups of fifth graders, good and poor comprehenders. The two groups had 48 fifth graders each, selected from 228 students who took the New Developmental Reading Test and the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test. Subjects…

Middle-school students, called "transescent learners," are at an age during which they undergo physical and intellectual changes that affect them emotionally and socially, causing confused thinking and insecure feelings. This paper offers seven guidelines to help the middle-school teacher select and present reading materials that enhance learning…

To help students develop techniques which lead to maximum reading efficiency, it is first necessary to help them develop a positive self-image. Growing evidence is focusing attention on self-image as the crucial determiner of progress. Poor progess in reading at the elementary level leads to poor self-image, which in turn hinders the student in…

A study investigated the effectiveness of using thematic organizers to increase the reading comprehension of poor readers. The thematic organizer was used to expand the readers' prior knowledge by defining the implied thematic concept and presenting relevant examples of that concept. Twenty-four fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students who had been…