This compilation explains the Strategic Reading Project (SRP), a long-term staff development project for schools committed to improving their students' ability to read strategically. Noting that the SRP has been designed for elementary schools, the compilation points out that the project is adaptable to high schools. The Project Team Notebook in…

This paper examines the nature of physics students' knowledge, the means to identify alternative conceptions, and possible methods to overcome misconceptions. This examination is a survey of the techniques and ideas of a large number of researchers who are seeking their own solutions to this problem. An examination of the nature of knowledge…

A study aimed to increase understanding of how different writing-to-learn tasks invite the ways in which students construct meaning in writing from sources. The tasks used, writing either a report or a problem-based essay, required students to integrate prior knowledge with information from six textual sources in order to construct their own…

A study examined whether first-grade children comprehended less-familiar vocabulary from four "Mother Goose" nursery rhymes and whether the children used auditory context clues and/or visual illustrations to comprehend unknown vocabulary in the nursery rhymes. Subjects, 40 children from suburban areas and 40 children from urban areas,…

This is a report about the first two stages of a four-stage project designed to develop procedures to assess the accomplishments of applicants to graduate school. In the first stage, trial instruments were developed after thoroughly reviewing other attempts at assessing accomplishments and carefully considering the issues involved. Three…

Increasing numbers of colleges and universities are responding to the needs of adults seeking professional training and have come to recognize the value of experiential learning. One method of assessing previous learning is to prepare a portfolio with documentation of life experiences as they related to the learning process. The East Central…

Reflecting recent widespread interest in schema theory, this bibliography is intended to assist anyone interested in how the topic relates to reading. The introduction defines schema theory as the study of generic knowledge structures--called schemata--which are composed of "slots" or "placeholders" for each component, and…

There are two dominant approaches to understanding human memory, one in the tradition of Ebbinghaus, the other in the tradition of Bartlett. The former approach views learning as the formation of associations, while the latter views memory as the process of reconstruction of fragments based on prior knowledge. These positions are often considered…

The background of 197 university students from four introductory computer science classes at the State University of New York at Buffalo was investigated to determine factors contributing to academic success or failure in computer science. A background questionnaire, a test of computer science concepts (reading a simple program, symbol…

This document reviews studies that investigated certain inadequacies of English as a Second Language (ESL) reading comprehension tests. The first study examined whether three ESL reading comprehension tests required information principally from the text or from background knowledge. Results indicated that background knowledge differentially…

A study assessed the effects of metacognitive training in question answering strategies on students' ability to answer postreading comprehension questions. In the first part of the study, baseline data concerning the level of metacognitive awareness exhibited by expert readers when answering questions were gathered through the use of 44 skilled…

Eighty-eight college students were invited to cook a chocolate mousse and were allowed first to ask any question that seemed helpful to completing the task. The questions were answered immediately according to a predetermined schema: in one condition the subjects were told that the task would be rather easy, in the other condition they were told…

Based on an extensive review of literature on the depth of comprehension approach, a study was conducted to induce various degrees of depth of processing at the semantic inferential level through orientation tasks. It was hypothesized that the most superficial reading would occur for "error correction" and the deepest reading would be done for…

Results indicate that transfer of learning depended on the congruence between students' previous learning in the experiment and subsequent instruction. (Author/BJG)

During writing conferences, many teachers impose their own ideas and attitudes on the student's essay, and often are not sure how else to help their students arrive at changes that will improve their writing. Understanding or assessment of a student's prior knowledge about the topic can be very helpful to a teacher in shaping the conference and…