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.