Prose Comprehension Beyond The Word

When individuals read or listen to prose they try to understand what it means. This is quite obvious. However, the cognitive mechanisms that participate in prose comprehension are far from obvious. Even simple stories involve com plexities that have stymied many cognitive scientists. Why is prose comprehen sion so difficult to study? Perhaps because comprehension is guided by so many domains of knowledge. Perhaps because some critical mysteries of prose comprehension reside between the lines-in the mind of the comprehender. Ten years ago very few psychologists were willing to dig beyond the surface of explicit code in their studies of discourse processing. Tacit knowledge, world knowledge, inferences, and expectations were slippery notions that experimental psychologists managed to circumvent rather than understand. In many scientific circles it was taboo to investigate mechanisms and phenomena that are not directly governed by the physical stimulus. Fortunately, times have changed. Cognitive scientists are now vigorously exploring the puzzles of comprehension that lie beyond the word. The study of discourse processing is currently growing at a frenetic pace.

This volume provides an overview of research from the learning sciences into understanding, enhancing, and measuring "deep comprehension" from a psychological, educational, and psychometric perspective. It describes the characteristics of deep comprehension, what techniques may be used to improve it, and how deep levels of comprehension may be distinguished from shallow ones. It includes research on personal-level variables; how intelligent tutors promote comprehension; and the latest developments in psychometrics. The volume will be of interest to senior undergraduate and graduate students of cognitive psychology, learning, cognition and instruction, and educational technology.

Even though I had been studying reading problems in children for a number of years as a means of understanding cognitive processes, I became deeply committed to the study of developmental dyslexia after my encounter with S. H. , a dyslexic college student. Until then, dyslexia to me remained an interesting phenomenon but somewhat removed from the mainstream of my research interests. The facts that, in spite of his superior IQ, S. H. could read no better than a child in the fifth grade and misspelled even common words such as was and here, however, took me by surprise and made me appreciate the intriguing and challenging nature of developmental dyslexia. This led to a series of studies of college students with reading disability, a group that is relatively unexplored. The general plan of these investigations was to study a small number of disabled readers at any given time, rather intensively. Even though this approach limits the generalizability of the research findings, it lays bare some of the most interesting facts about dyslexia which are obscured in large-scale statistical studies. These studies have now extended well over a decade and are still continuing. As soon as these studies were started, it became obvious that not all reading-disabled college students are alike and that disabled readers could be classified into three broad categories: those with poor decod ing skill, those with poor comprehension ability, and those with a combination of these two deficits.

The Science of Reading: A Handbook brings together state-of-the-art reviews of reading research from leading names in the field, to create a highly authoritative, multidisciplinary overview of contemporary knowledge about reading and related skills. Provides comprehensive coverage of the subject, including theoretical approaches, reading processes, stage models of reading, cross-linguistic studies of reading, reading difficulties, the biology of reading, and reading instruction Divided into seven sections:Word Recognition Processes in Reading; Learning to Read and Spell; Reading Comprehension; Reading in Different Languages; Disorders of Reading and Spelling; Biological Bases of Reading; Teaching Reading Edited by well-respected senior figures in the field

This pioneering book is now in a revised and expanded second edition featuring the latest neuroscientific knowledge and instructional strategies. Kelly B. Cartwright provides a teacher-friendly explanation of executive skills--such as planning, organization, cognitive flexibility, and impulse control--and their role in reading comprehension. Detailed examples illustrate how each skill is deployed by strong comprehenders and ways to tailor instruction for students who are struggling. The companion website features reproducible planning and assessment forms from the book as well as supplemental card sorts to teach and assess cognitive flexibility, all ready to download and print in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size. New to This Edition *Updated throughout with advances in theory, research, and instruction. *Chapter on word recognition, with particular attention to dyslexia. *Information on the development of the brain's reading network. *Expanded emphasis on oral language comprehension. *Appendix of intervention studies; online-only supplement with card sorts to teach and assess cognitive flexibility.

Now in a revised and updated fifth edition, this gold-standard text and K–8 practitioner resource provides a roadmap for comprehensive literacy instruction informed by the science of reading. Rather than advocating one best approach, the book shows how to balance skills- and meaning-focused instruction to support all students' success. Chapters describe specific ways to build word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, especially for learners who are struggling. The book explains the conceptual underpinnings of recommended strategies and techniques and shows how exemplary teachers actually put them into practice. New to This Edition *Updated throughout with new coauthor Tim Pressley; incorporates the latest research about reading development and difficulties. *Chapter on instruction for emergent bilingual learners (EBs), plus an appendix on selecting texts for EBs. *Expanded discussions of dyslexia and the role of executive function in reading. *Application tables that translate key concepts into recommended classroom strategies.

Learning to read, and to spell are two of the most important cultural skills that must be acquired by children, and for that matter, anyone learning a second language. We are not born with an innate ability to read. A reading system of mental representations that enables us to read must be formed in the brain. Learning to read in alphabetic orthographies is the acquisition of such a system, which links mental representations of visual symbols (letters) in print words, with pre-existing phonological (sound) and semantic (comprehension) cognitive systems for language. Although spelling draws on the same representational knowledge base and is usually correlated with reading, the acquisition processes involved are not quite the same. Spelling requires the sequential production of letters in words, and at beginning levels there may not be a full degree of integration of phonology with its representation by the orthography. Reading, on the other hand, requires only the recognition of a word for pronunciation. Hence, spelling is more difficult than reading, and learning to spell may necessitate more complete representations, or more conscious access to them. The learning processes that children use to acquire such cognitive systems in the brain, and whether these same processes are universal across different languages and orthographies are central theoretical questions. Most children learn to read and spell their language at the same time, thus the co-ordination of these two facets of literacy acquisition needs explication, as well as the effect of different teaching approaches on acquisition. Lack of progress in either reading and/or spelling is also a major issue of concern for parents and teachers necessitating a cross-disciplinary approach to the problem, encompassing major efforts from researchers in neuroscience, cognitive science, experimental psychology, and education. The purpose of this Research Topic is to summarize and review what has been accomplished so far, and to further explore these general issues. Contributions from different perspectives are welcomed and could include theoretical, computational, and empirical works that focus on the acquisition of literacy, including cross-orthographic research.