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S The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of issue‐related emotional involvement on reading comprehension. Three groups of 24 eighth graders from the Philadelphia and Boston areas read silently a text about a basketball game which ended in a fight. The subjects in two of these groups were highly emotionally involved with one of the teams in the text they read. The subjects in the third group were not emotionally involved with either of the teams in the text they read. After reading the text, students recalled the passage from memory and answered three questions pertaining to the text. Students' responses to the questions were combined to form a score representing the degree and direction of bias represented in their interpretation of the text that they read. Group means were then calculated and compared using a single factor analysis of variance. Pairwise comparisons were conducted using the least significant difference test. Students' comments throughout the sessions were examined and provided as data to support and clarify the quantitative analyses. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between the way the three groups interpreted the text. The two high emotional involvement groups interpreted the text in line with their affiliation, and the control group interpreted the text more neutrally. These findings support the hypothesis that emotional involvement can have an important impact on how we interpret texts. Implications of this study are discussed in relation to theories of text processing, critical thinking, and conceptual change. EL PROPÓSITO de este estudio fue investigar el efecto del compromiso emocional con el tema sobre la comprensión en lectura. Tres grupos de 24 niños de octavo grado de las áreas de Filadelfia y Boston leyeron en silencio un texto acerca de un partido de básquet que terminó en una pelea. Los sujetos de dos de estos grupos estaban muy involucrados emocionalmente con uno de los equipos que aparecían en el texto. Los sujetos del tercer grupo no estaban involucrados emocionalmente con ninguno de los equipos sobre los que leían. Luego de la lectura del texto, los estudiantes hicieron un relato oral del texto a partir de su recuerdo y respondieron tres preguntas referentes al texto. Las respuestas de los estudiantes a las preguntas fueron combinadas para formar un puntaje que determinaba el grado y la dirección del sesgo representado en su interpretación del texto leído. Luego se calcularon las medias de los grupos y estas se compararon usando un análisis de variancia de factor único. Se hicieron comparaciones entre pares mediante el test de la menor diferencia significativa. Los comentarios de los estudiantes a través de las sesiones fueron examinados y proporcionaron datos para dar apoyo y clarificar el análisis cuantitativo. Los resultados mostraron una diferencia significativa en la forma en que los tres grupos interpretaron el texto. Los dos grupos involucrados emocionalmente interpretaron el texto de acuerdo con sus simpatías y el grup...

The two major goals of this paper are to describe a 5-year research and development project that led to the creation of a decoding program for poor readers in Grades 1-8 and to report the results of our research along the way. Unlike most research and development projects, research did not simply follow program development and assess its effectiveness. Instead, action research was used as a means of developing the program and program development led to modifications in the research as well. Thus, research and development had a reciprocal relationship and evolved together. The word identification program that eventually took shape emphasized phonemic awareness and decoding by analogy. Our findings were consistent with the conclusion that the word identification program enabled students to become better decoders and allowed them to make small gains in spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension.

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the Teachers of Benchmark SchoolFor poor readers, one roadblock to the construction of meaning from text may be the inability to decode words quickly and accurately. In most cases more phonics instruction, similar to what has not worked in the past, does not improve this situation. Based on an analysis of the research literature in decoding and linguistics and a 4-year cycle of program development, a new program was created for teaching decoding to poor readers of average or above intelligence in grades 1 through 8. The program guides students to become aware of patterns and consistencies in our langauge and to apply a decoding process of using what they have learned about words to decode words they do not know. It is a teacher directed, supplemental program to be taught to a whole class for approximately 15 to 20 minutes a day and is intended to be used in conjunction with a basal reader or trade book program. The program features a multisensory approach, strong emphasis on vocabulary and language development, and a direct teaching model. Goals of the program include teaching students to use known words to decode unknown words, to discriminate structural components of words, to see how our language is organized, to be flexible in pronouncing words, and to demonstrate automaticity in decoding-all as foundation blocks for the meaning-making process. Preliminary evidence suggests that the program has been successful in improving students' decoding skills.