The papers in this volume were initially presented at a seminar on the development of reading comprehension, which explored basic research and the teaching of reading comprehenison. Researchers in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics and experts in curriculum design in reading gave presentations and reacted to one another's ideas. Each researcher commented on the paper of one curriculum designer and vice versa. Specific topics discussed include developmental parameters of reading comprehension; language comprehension and fast decoding; purpose in reading; syntax, semantics, and reading; the development of child language research; comprehension during the acquisition of decoding skills; an applied behavior analysis approach to reading comprehension; design for developing comprehension skills; cognitive processes fundamental to reading instruction; exemplary reading programs; and reading comprehension processes and instruction. (AA)