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This study investigated the strategies a group of college students used to complete a portion of a standardized reading comprehension test. Twenty‐six students were randomly assigned to either an introspective interview, in which the subjects explained to a researcher what they were doing and thinking as they read the test passages and answered the multiple‐choice questions, or a retrospective interview, in which the students completed the test without interruption and then recounted for the researcher how they had gone about the task. Data analysis resulted in the identification of three broad categories of processing behavior: an overall approach to the test task, reading strategies, and test‐taking strategies. In addition, difficulties encountered by the subjects were identified. Results indicate that the common element in each subject's approach to the test was a focus on getting to the questions as quickly as possible and then using the questions to direct a search of the passage to locate the best possible information to answer the questions. The implications of these results for better understanding the relationship between test‐taking behavior and reading are discussed.

In this article, reading is considered to be an interactiveprocess in which the schematic information a readerpossesses for the topic of a given text is as important to adequate comprehension as the information presented on the printed page. When reading in a foreign language, understanding of that language's accompanying culture enables students to approach reading topics from the appropriate cultural perspective. Several classroom activities are described for use before reading, while reading, and after reading.At a time when innovative methodologies for oral language instruction are gaining recognition in the classroom as well as in the research literature (Wolfe and Jones, 11; Lafayette and Strasheim, 4), most materials developers and classroom teachers still continue to disregard the newer body of theory and application that has developed in reading (Schulz,8). As a result, reading materials and instruction for foreign language students remain dominated by the practices of the past which view reading as deriving meaning from print, without recognizing the full importance of the reader's background knowledge. The alternatives presented in this article are based on an interactive model of reading, which maintains that background knowledge readers bring to the reading act is as important as the information residing in the text. E. Jane Melendez Schema Theory and Reading ComprehensionThe following paragraph offers the readers of this article personal experience with the implications of schema theory. The paragraph contains four nonsense words: doogledorph, gleep, klem, and sleechy. Even though these words all follow the conventions of English spelling, and readers can undoubtably pronounce each one, it is impossible to assign them meaning out of context. However, as one reads the paragraph, the English equivalent meanings will become apparent. He kept on climbing until he reached the top of the doogledorph. He was suddenly engulfed by a dense sleechy. As the wind carried it away, he found himself gazing out over a breathtaking panorama. White peaks surrounded him, some with fluffy sleechies seeming to be skewered on their points. The klem was a deep blue, and everything seemed to sparkle as the bright sun beamed down. As he looked down into a valley, he saw a two-humped gleep ambling along the river bank. It was the most unusual one he had ever seen, but he was sure it was a gleep. He wondered what agleep was doing in a doogledorph area. They usually inhabited only desert areas. As most readers go through the paragraph, they recognize that the English equivalents for the nonsense words listed above are mountain, camel, sky, and cloud, respectively. Of course, these are the terms that make sense as one tries to fit real words into the spaces filled by nonsense. But, why are readers able to do this?For several years theorists in the field of reading have recognized readers' knowledge of the general

This study investigated the impact of an innovative professional development initiative on teachers' ability to use technological resources to improve English learners' academic language. The Teaching Using Technology Studio, a collaborative effort between school district and university personnel, was designed as a responsive professional development program for 16 upper elementary teachers in California. Pre-post scores on a knowledge/use scale and a Teacher Technology Proficiency Assessment, as well as teacher reflections, interviews, classroom observations, and field notes, showed significant changes in the teachers' knowledge of and ability to use technology to develop activities and lessons designed to impact academic language development. Student scores on district benchmark assessments and on the annual state assessment suggest that teachers' participation in this professional development initiative led to positive academic language outcomes for the English learners in their classrooms.