The problem of this study was to investigate how good and poor comprehenders utilize passage structure and task instructions to acquire information from a prose passage. To give a more detailed picture of what type of information processing occurred during reading, both verbatim and paraphrase items were used to assess comprehension.There were two strong but nonsignificant patterns in the data for task instructions. Poor readers were sensitive to both attribute and relation instructions. Good readers, however, were not affected by attribute instructions, but were sensitive to relation instructions. The results for good readers tentatively suggest that they encode attributes as a natural part of reading, but only encode relationships when they are specifically instructed to do so. Based on these results, three observations were made. First, good readers appear not to be easily affected by text organization, but poor readers may be aided in comprehension by slight improvements in the organization of the text. Second, all students need more assistance and practice in drawing inferences from the text. Third, written instructions may be a weak aid for increasing the comprehension of poor readers and may help good readers attend to information they would normally miss.

This investigation was concerned with whether linguistic competence with printed material is related to the retention of information contained in prose passages of high readability. The specific purpose of the study was to investigate relationships between linguistic competence and free recall, immediate, delayed, and practiced, after the reading of a passage of high readability. In a review of related literature, indications were found that linguistic competence could be expressed by test scores of reading achievement. Therefore, in this study linguistic competence was operationally defined by scores of literal and inferential reading comprehension.

This study examined correlations between assessed intelligence and two major categories of reading comprehension: literal-explicit and inferential-implicit. In addition, efficiency of prediction for criterion variables was investigated by utilizing two regression models which incorporated intelligence scores squared and the square root of intelligence scores. Since it is generally accepted that the higher the assessed intelligence of an individual, the higher will be his achievement in all areas of reading comprehension, the present study sought to discover whether there was a curvilinear relationship between intelligence and the two categories of reading comprehension with the factor of intelligence statistically controlled. It was felt that the hypothesized curvilinear relationship would result in significantly better performance by brighter students on inferential questions and significantly better performance by less-bright students on literal questions. Although no cause and effect has been established, based on the data presented in this study and within the. limitations of this study, the following conclusions seem tenable. 1. Since reading comprehension may be viewed as a thinking process, it is important to note that a relationship exists between the assessed intelligence of an individual and his performance on both literal and inferential tests of that process. 2. This study has demonstrated …

The purpose of this study was to describe the nature of reading instruction in a program using children's trade books instead of basal readers, and to identify patterns resulting in hypotheses regarding the nature of instruction. The study informs practitioners by providing descriptions of actual instruction, enabling readers to envision how reading instruction is accomplished using children's trade books, and it informs the research community by developing grounded theory concerning the nature of instruction in one literature-based reading program. The study can help bridge the polarization between traditionalists and whole language advocates through the descriptions of how traditionally accepted academic domains of reading instruction were accomplished. Also, it provides a model of a successful way to structure instructional time so that students spend more time actually reading, and it documents the social dimensions of instruction as important domain of reading instruction.