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The Instruction of Reading Comprehension

Article in Contemporary Educational Psychology · July 1983

DOI: 10.1016/0361-476X(83)90019-X · Source: OAI

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 H
ILLINOJ S
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PRODUCTION NOTE
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign Library
Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007.
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Technical Report No, 297

THE INSTRUCTION OF READING COMPREHENSION

P. David Pearson
Margaret C. Gallagher
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

October 1983

Center for the Study of Reading

READING
EDUCATION
REPORTS

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

51 Gerty Drive
Champaign, Illinois 61820

BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN INC.

50 Moulton Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238

The National
Institute of
Education
U.S. Department of
Education
Washington. D.C. 20)2)0
 CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF READING

Technical Report No, 297

THE INSTRUCTION OF READING COMPREHENSION

P. David Pearson
Margaret C. Gallagher
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

October 1983

University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.
51 Gerty Drive 50 Moulton Street
Champaign, Illinois 61820 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238

The research reported herein was supported in part by the National Institute
of Education under Contract No. NIE-400-81-0030. A modified version of this
paper appears in Contemporary Educational Psychology, 1983, 8, 317-345.
 EDITORIAL BOARD

William Nagy
Editor

Harry Blanchard Anne Hay

Wayne Blizzard Patricia Herman

Nancy Bryant Asghar Iran-Nejad

Pat Chrosniak Margi Laff

Avon Crismore Brian Nash

Linda Fielding Theresa Rogers

Dan Foertsch Behrooz Tavakoli

Meg Gallagher Terry Turner

Beth Gudbrandsen Paul Wilson

 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

The Instruction of Reading Comprehension little to our cumulative knowledge about either the nature of

comprehension, comprehension instruction or the relationship between the

While it is still possible to lament the lack of good solid causally
two. This criterion of interpretability, or, if you will, contribution to
interpretable research in the area of reading comprehension instruction
cumulative knowledge, became a criterion not for inclusion/exclusion but
(Jenkins & Pany, 1980; Tierney & Cunningham, 1980), there can be little
rather for degree of assigned emphasis.
question that more research about the basic processes and instructional
The second task of a reviewer is to establish a framework for
practices of reading comprehension has been packed into the last half
organizing the various research efforts that passed the inclusion test.
decade (1978-1982) than in any previous period (however long). The purpose
Anyone who has ever searched for such a framework will recognize the
of this review is to characterize, summarize, and evaluate that research in
arbitrariness of this task; any world, however small and finite, lends
terms of its contribution to principles of instructional practice.

itself to different modes of categorization and decomposition.

The first and most formidable task of a reviewer is to limit his or

Nonetheless, it must be done. We have divided the world of comprehension

her search for potentially relevant studies. This is especially important
instruction studies into four main categories: Existential descriptions,
in the area of reading comprehension given the enormous output of the field
existential proofs, pedagogical experiments and program evaluations.
in each of the last 6 or 7 years. Since our focus is on instruction rather
Existential descriptions have a very straightforward purpose: They propose
than basic processes or the development of processes, we will deal with
to answer the question, "What's going on out there in the real world of
process or cross-age studies only to establish a feeling for the milieu in
classrooms and instructional materials?" They serve a useful function to
which research about instruction has been conducted or only if the

the instructional researcher who may wish ultimately to change that real
implications for instruction of a particular, say developmental, study are
world because they provide a benchmark for evaluating the worth and
so strong as to compel comment about it. The major criterion for

potential of any positive instructional finding. Existential proofs serve

inclusion, then, becomes, "Did the study examine either comprehension
to answer a question preliminary to the conduct of an honest instructional
instruction or the consequences of comprehension instruction and/or
study: "Is a given variable or set of variables operative in the
learning?" A secondary criterion became obvious during the search. The

population of learners I might choose later to instruct?" Pedagogical

studies dealing with instruction varied along a continuum of

experiments serve to answer specific questions about the efficacy of

interpretability; that is, some studies appeared, prima facie, to be about
particular instructional interventions, "What is the impact of this
comprehension instruction, but they were difficult if not impossible to

interpretation on students' performance on comprehension tasks X and/or Y

evaluate within the prevailing zeitgeist. In short, they seemed to add

and/or Z?" They typically involve relatively short term interventions and
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

evaluate impacts along a continuum of local to broadly transferable fact, one can argue that it was the sheer weight of such practically

effects. Program evaluations represent attempts to evaluate the motivated research that led, in the early 1970's, to the demise of this

"institutionalization" of an instructional variable, or, more likely, a set long tradition. At the very time when reading educators were thirsting for

of instructional variables, by examining their gross long range effects practical research motivated by underlying models and theories of the

when they have become part of a curriculum implemented by real teachers in reading process, psychologists were working in the newly rediscovered

real classrooms in real schools. As such, they are capable of answering cognitive tradition to participate in what can only be regarded as a

proliferation of models of prose comprehension in the middle 1970's. The

questions like, "Now that we've proven that a variable is operative,

differs from the conventional wisdom, and exhibits a powerful short-range marriage of these two forces has proven remarkably productive (see Pearson,

effect, what will happen to it when we mix it up with everything else we 1981, for a treatment of these historical forces).

normally do as a part of what we call teaching reading on a day-to-day The middle to late 1970's witnessed a barrage of new frameworks for

basis?" These four broad categories serve to organize the main part of the understanding comprehension. It was a period that witnessed the emergence

paper; only the section on pedagogical experiments will be further of schemata (Anderson, 1977; Rumelhart, 1980), frames (Minsky, 1975),

decomposed since it represents the bulk of the relevant work conducted scripts (Schank, 1973), story grammars (Rumelhart, 1975; Stein & Glenn,

since 1978. First, however, we offer a word about the general milieu of 1979; Thorndyke, 1977), and a host of text-analytic schemes (Fredericksen,

reading research, since it has probably served to motivate many of the 1975; Kintsch, 1974; Grimes, 1975; Meyer, 1975). These notions were

questions that instructional researchers have asked in recent years. followed by even stranger constructs like metacognition and

metacomprehension (see Baker & Brown, in press, for a review). And it was
The Milieu
not just the terminology that was new; despite protestations to the
Reading educators have been trying to answer instructional questions
contrary, the ideas were, if not completely novel, at least so much more
for at least 80 years. They dealt with little but instructional issues
detailed than their vague predecessors as to cause reading researchers to
during the period from 1920-1970. It is not difficult to determine the
rethink basic notions about curriculum and instruction.
very practical motives of the hundreds of comparative evaluations of
What is important about the ideas in this milieu is that instructional
different beginning reading programs (see Chall, 1967; Bond & Dykstra,
researchers have tried very seriously to take them into account as they ask
1966), the scores of reading achievement prediction studies (see Barrett,
what are only on the surface simple questions like, "What's the best way to
1967 or Dykstra, 1967 for reviews of these efforts), or the dozens of
teach X?" Unlike earlier periods in which a researcher could address an
readability efforts (see Klare, 1903; Klare, 1974-75 for reviews). In
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

recently), comprehension instruction (the teacher offers students some

issue because he or she knew it was a concern for teachers, today's

two masters: the theoretician and the advice, information, or direction about how to understand a text segment
instructional researcher must serve

classroom teacher. In the current milieu, it is not enough for a study to longer than a word), assignment-giving (the teacher says enough about an

show an improvement in comprehension performance; it must also link its assignment--usually a workbook page or a worksheet--so that the students

construct. Now, ultimately, this understand the formal requirements of the task, but stops short of offering
findings to some theoretically current

students clear explanations about the actual subject matter of the task),
situation will probably prove beneficial to both theory and practice, for

theory and a good theoretical test for practice (students complete a workbook page or a worksheet on their own),
it provides a good reality test for

and application (asking students to apply a just-taught skill with a new

practice. But in the interim, it places enormous constraint and

example).
responsibility (and sometimes, we think, a quest for prestidigitation) on

Durkin found that fewer than 50 of the 17,997 minutes of observations

instructional researchers.

(.25%) contained any comprehension instruction. The most commonly observed

Existential Descriptions
teacher behavior (17.65%) was assessment followed by giving and helping
Existential descriptions are conducted in order to describe
with assigned worksheets (14.35%). Application simply was not observed.
instruction as it exists in schools and/or materials. In principle, such
From individual students' point of view, the largest percentage of time was

descriptions remain neutral with respect to evaluating whether what exists

devoted to writing comprehension assignments (about 9%), responding to

is good or bad. Few, however, achieve such neutrality; and even if they
assessment probes in writing (about 6%), or listening to others answer

do, they are seldom interpreted by others with neutrality.

questions (about 3%).

In the area of reading comprehension instruction, the most influential

When Durkin (1981) turned from classroom teachers to the suggestions

existential description of classroom practices is Durkin's (1978-79)

for comprehension instruction in the teacher's manuals accompanying basal

investigation of how some 39 intermediate grade teachers addressed the

reading programs, she used a similar scheme for analyzing what the manuals

phenomenon of reading comprehension. Durkin and her co-workers observed

directed the teachers to do when working with students on the selections to

reading and (to a lesser degree) social studies lessons throughout a school
be read or on the skills to be taught. While these five basal reading

year for a total of 17,997 minutes. They classified what they observed
series fared somewhat better than did the classroom teachers on the

into several categories of teacher and/or student behavior. Most relevant

percentage of space devoted to the direct training of comprehension skills,

to our discussion are these categories of behavior: assessment (the

it was still true that the dominant provisions for students to learn
teacher asks students a question about a selection the students have read
various comprehension skills were (1) lots of questions for students to
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

different perspective. They examined all the support features of the

answer about the selections they read and (2) lots of worksheets and
guided reading lesson (all those before, during and after reading the
workbook pages for students to complete independently. Even when
selection activities teachers are supposed to do with students in the
instruction was provided, Durkin noted that the length of a directive that
reading group) in order to try to sort out helpful from misleading types of
she, by her very liberal criterion, classified as instructive was sometimes
activities. They noted several types of problems: (1) Suggestions for

only a single sentence, e.g., "remind the students that the main idea is
building background often misled students because they focused students'
the most important idea in the paragraph."
attention on aspects of the selection that are not central to a thorough
Durkin did find one feature often included in basals but seldom
understanding of the selection. (2) Questions for stories often
employed by teachers--application. Application involves a teacher guiding
represented a randomly accumulated quiz of unrelated detail rather than a
students to complete an example of an exercise for a given skill; ideally,
carefully planned sequence of questions designed to elucidate the causal
Durkin thought, application examples would follow some explicit
connections between major story elements and events. (3) The pictures that
instruction. Instead, what Durkin found is that they often supplanted
accompany the early stories often did not support the story line. Like
instruction; this led her to conclude that basals often teach skills "by
questions and building background activities, they sometimes misdirected
implication;" that is, giving students a chance to show that they can
students' attention to unimportant textual features.
perform a skill correctly instead of instruction about what the skill is
The most recent flurry of existential descriptions have focused on
and how one applies it. It represents a sort of pre-independent practice
reading instruction in classes dealing with content areas such as social
group practice technique. Rarely, however, did manuals offer any
studies and science. Gallagher and Pearson (1982, 1983) have found several
suggestions for feedback or what to do if the students failed; instead
patterns of teacher/student interactions all geared to a common
additional application opportunities were provided.
instructional goal--getting the content of the texts into students' heads.
Durkin was struck with the similarity of what was provided in the
The most common pattern (about 65% of the 40 teachers) involved round robin
manuals and what teachers did in classrooms. The two traditions that seem
oral reading of the segments (about a page in length) in a chapter with low
to dominate both manuals and teacher practice are assessment of selection
level detail questions interspersed between segments. In the second most
content and practice of comprehension skills on workbook pages. The hope,
common pattern (about 10%) students read the chapter on their own and then
apparently, is that eventually students will get the message on their own.
the teacher engaged them in a socratic dialogue that focused upon what the
Beck and her colleagues (Beck, McKeown, McCaslin, & Burkes, 1979)
teacher viewed as important in the content. The questions, however, were
analyzed comprehension instruction in basal manuals from a somewhat
as likely to emphasize background knowledge or text pictures as text
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

9
10

authors, is the delivery of information. Hence the emphasis in content

details. (In a sense, this technique requires the teacher to set up goals
area lessons on oral reading of the passages and questions that assess the
about what is important and then to follow whatever line of questions will

mastery of the content. but even in the basal readers, the emphasis on
elicit those understandings.) In the third dominant pattern (about 10%)
what Durkin called assessment can be viewed as at least a test of whether
the students read the text and then the teacher paraphrased it for them; in
the students got some of the information in the story. When skill
a sense the teacher told them what it really meant (or what was really
instruction was offered in the basals, the dominant pattern of delivery was
worth remembering). Only two teachers in the entire sample spent any time/
simply to allow students a chance to practice the skill on their own in the
teaching skills or strategies students might use on their own. When
hope, perhaps, that they would eventually figure out how to use and apply
Pearson and Gallagher interviewed the teachers, they found that the
the strategy independently.
universal justification for all the strategies teachers used was that so

many of the students could not read the books on their own that they had to Existential Proofs

do something to help them acquire the information presented in the text. The logic of existential proofs seems to be something like this: "If
This leads to a situation in which teachers feel compelled to do something I can prove that a variable affects reading comprehension, then it becomes
that duplicates rather than complements the function of the text as a a candidate for future instructional manipulation. Even better, if I can

source of key information. The question that arises, of course, is when do

show that the variable is present to a greater degree in the repertoire of
students get a chance to acquire strategies they can apply independently as
good than poor readers or more mature than less mature readers, then it
they read.
becomes a candidate to introduce instructionally either in remedial

Neilsen, Rennie, and Connell (1982) used a modification of Durkin's

programs or earlier in the school curriculum."

(1978-79) category scheme to classify teacher/student interactions in There are numerous studies demonstrating that the same variables that

social studies classrooms. Like Durkin, they found dominant emphases on affect adult reading also affect children's reading. Take, for example,

assessment of chapter content (post-reading questions) and helping students schema orientation effect (i.e., the schema into which text information is

with written assignments. Although they found more explicit instruction in assimilated affects the way it is encoded into and/or retrieved from

comprehension strategies (2.4%), it still accounted for a miniscule memory) so well documented for adults in research efforts like those of

proportion of teacher/student interaction time.

Bransfora (Bransford & Johnson, 1972; Bransford & McCarrell, 1974), and
Looking across all of these existential descriptions, one common Anderson (Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert, & Goetz, 1977; Anderson, Spiro, &
thread appears. What seems to matter, both to teachers and to basal manual Anderson, 1978; Pichert & Anderson, 1977). Pearson, Hansen and Gordon
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

11 12

(1979), Pace (1977) and Raphael, Myers, Tirre, Freebody, and Fritz (1981)
inferences and remember them. Raphael, Winograd and Pearson (1980) found
have documented similar effects for school age children.
consistent differences in the ability to draw inferences as both a function
Even more research has been conducted tracing the course of
of age (4th versus 6th versus 8th grade) and ability (high versus low at
development of story schemata (see Stein & Glenn, 1979; Mandler & Johnson,
each grade level).
1977; Thorndyke, 1977 for examples of story grammar constructs). Whaley
Raphael (Raphael & Pearson, 1982; Raphael, Winograd, & Pearson, 1980)
(1982) and Nielsen (1977) have demonstrated a growth in the sophistication
has demonstrated quite convincingly that both older and better readers not
of children's story schemata over time, while Stein and her colleagues have
only are able to answer a variety of types of questions better than are
done much to spell out the specific features of story schemata that change
younger and poorer readers, but also that they are better at identifying
across ages. In general what happens is that older readers become more
the kinds of text utilization strategies they employ as they answer
proficient at recalling lower level specific information from stories.
questions. In short they are better monitors of their comprehension. On
Turning to expository structures, Meyer, Brandt, and Bluth (1980) have
the general issue of monitoring strategy use, recent reviews by Baker and
shown that better junior high readers are more adept at using the text
Brown (in press) and Wagoner (1983) suggest that both older and better
structure employed by an author in organizing their more complete recall
readers surpass younger and poorer readers on a host of monitoring and
protocols than are poor readers. Meyer (1977-a, 1977-b) has also shown
metacognitive measures.
that better readers recall more than poorer readers from expository
While one would expect that many good/poor or older/younger student
selections, and that while the difference between the two is fairly
differences in comprehension could be traced to differences in background
consistent across levels of importance in the text, it is even more skewed
knowledge, there are precious few demonstrations of the effect (perhaps
in favor of good readers at lower levels of detail. Apparently for both
because such differences seem so obvious). While not central features of
stories and expositions, one of the abilities that develops is the ability
any of the studies, research efforts by Marr and Gormley (1982) and Hayes
to attach details to more important chunks of information.
and Tierney (1982) both show that much of the variance in comprehension
Similarly, the work on the ability to draw inferences suggests that
attributable to reading ability differences is, at heart, a difference in
older readers draw more spontaneous inferences than do younger readers,
prior knowledge of topic. These findings parallel the findings of Onanson,
although the source of the difference is not clear. For example, Omanson,
et al. (1978); recall that they found differences across ages in inference
Warren and Trabasso (1978) attribute it to a difference in prior knowledge
drawing ability to be largely a difference in prior knowledge of topic.
of the topic of the text, while Paris (Paris & Upton, 1976; Paris &
Turning to issues of vocabulary knowledge, there is a similar lack of
Lindauer, 1976) prefers to explain it in terms of a predisposition to draw
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

13 14

direct developmental or cross-ability research, again perhaps because it then evaluates the effect of the nudge on other features of the

seems so obvious that better and older readers will possess larger general environment. There is nothing new about the idea; the term, in fact, was

and content-specific vocabularies than will poorer readers. On average, coined long ago by Binet. What is unique about recent work in reading

this has to be true, at least for general vocabulary knowledge; otherwise comprehension instruction is the attempt of researchers to test the

standardized vocabulary tests could not operate the way they do. however, educational efficacy of ideas that seem to stem rather directly from recent

Johnston and Pearson (1982) and Johnston (in press) found an effect for developments in reading theory and/or research about basic cognitive

specific vocabulary knowledge of text topics on comprehension independent processes.

of reading ability, implying a less than perfect correlation between We originally decided to divide pedagogical experiments into three

ability and vocabulary knowledge. major but overlapping subcategories: removing roadblocks to comprehension,

One could go on and on with reports of such cross-age or cross-ability teaching explicit routines to help students perform comprehension tasks,

existential proofs, for this tradition of research has surely dominated the and teaching monitoring strategies so that students will be able to

efforts of both psychologists and educators. There are two reasons for evaluate whether or not they have applied a routine appropriately.

stopping the review here. First, while most of the work of developmental However, the overlap was so great between the latter two categories that we

psychologists has been directed toward building theories of developmental collapsed them into a single category and then sub-divided them on the

stages (or at least changes) in performance on various cognitive and basis of their central emphasis.

y
metacognitive tasks, that same work, from the viewpoint of the
Removing Roadblocks
instructional researcher, serves the function of providing existential
Given the wealth of research demonstrating the correlation between
proofs for the power of variables potentially useful in instructional
prior knowledge passage comprehension (e.g., Anderson et al., 1978;
intervention studies. Second, we have consciously chosen to review only
Pearson, et al., 1979), the most obvious candidate to manipulate as a
those lines of research that set the stage for the instructional
potential roadblock is prior knowledge of the topic of the passage to be
experiments to be reviewed in the next section of this paper. And it is to
read. There is a wealth of such research taking shape within several
these instructional experiments that we now direct our attention.
different traditions.

Pedagogical Experiments The oldest tradition stems from the advance organizer work of Ausubel

The notion of the pedagogical experiment is straightforward: One (1963, 1968, 1978). The basic paradigm here is to provide readers with an

nudges a small bit of the educational environment of students a little and overview of the passage to be read and then evaluate its effect on
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

15 16

comprehension. There have been literally hundreds of advance organizer

An intuitively appealing strategy for building background knowledge is
studies, conducted mostly with college students and sometimes with
to provide students analogical ties between a presumably familiar domain
secondary students. In addition these studies have been reviewed or
and a presumably unfamiliar one. While Dowell (1968) and Drugge (1977)
synthesized on numerous occasions (e.g., Barnes & Clawson, 1975; Hartley &
found no effect for the advance presentation of analogical material, Royer
Davies, 1976; Lawton & Wanska, 1977; Mayer, 1979; Luiten, Ames, & Ackerson,
and Cable (1975, 1976), and Ausubel and Fitzgerald (1961) found
1979; Sledge, 1979; Moore & Readance, 1980). The trends from these
facilitative effects for texts with analogies provided prior to target
syntheses have been so variable that about all one can say is that advance
texts. Hayes and Tierney (1982) compared the pre-target text presentation
organizers tend, on the whole, to help readers; however, their specific
of texts with explicit analogies between baseball and cricket against texts
effect is so sensitive to contextual factors (grade level of student,
that provided information either about baseball or cricket. They found a
student ability, mode of presentation of organizer, amount of prior
modest tendency for the texts with analogies to elicit superior recall of
knowledge of student, and text difficulty) that few generalizations about
subsequent articles about cricket; however, both the cricket and the
their effect tend to hold universally. The most ambitious review (Luiten,
baseball texts elicited nearly as strong effects on subsequent
et al., 1979) examined some 135 studies, finding an overall positive effect
comprehension when compared to a neutral text. Their results, in fact,
for advance organizers, a tendency for their impact to increase with time,
better support the conclusion that any attempt to provide relevant
and a variable impact with student aptitude with the nod going to greater
background knowledge is superior to providing irrelevant experiences, and,
benefit for lower aptitude students.
hence, tend to support the general schema activation hypothesis.
Advance organizer research, however, tests what is perhaps the weakest
Crafton (1980) investigated this issue in what might be regarded as a
of hypothetical relationships between prior knowledge and comprehension:
context replicating a typical classroom reading situation. She examined
SDoes it help to remind students to make certain schemata available before
the effects of reading a first article about a topic on reading a second
they read about a topic? An instructionally more relevant question focuses
(corresponding, if you will, to the cumulative effect on comprehension one
on schema acquisition rather than schema activation. When prior knowledge
might expect from reading an entire chapter in, say, a science text). She
is meager, are there prereading activities that can help to build it to a
found strong effects for the first reading experience upon the second,
state that allows adequate comprehension to occur? The research addressing
suggesting the cumulative effect of schema acquisition across an extended
this question falls into two categories: building background knowledge via
reading experience.
topically-relevant texts and/or teaching passage specific vocabulary.
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

17 18

One of the few studies available on literary works was conducted by Swaby (1977) found that a vocabulary technique emphasizing where a new

Graves, Cooke, and LaBerge (1983). They found strong and consistent effects concept "fits" in one's overall semantic network was superior to a more

on comprehension of short stories for students of low ability levels when traditional providing-definitions approach in aiding post-passage inference

they provided a pre-reading prdcis of each story (where the precis questions for poor sixth-grade readers. By contrast, Schachter (1978)

summarized the problem, events, and resolution of the subsequent story, found a similar effect on inferential comprehension only for good fifth

introduced the characters, and contextually defined potentially difficult grade readers. An examination of the passages used in these two studies

vocabulary). reveals that the passages in the Swaby study were relatively easy compared

The notion of pre-teaching specific passage vocabulary is as old as to those used by Schachter. This suggests that there may be an "optimal

teaching reading. Nearly all teachers' manuals for basal readers suggest level of ignorance" (of key concepts) at which vocabulary instruction

difficult words for teachers to define and discuss prior to reading a "takes." If the passages are either too familiar or too unfamiliar to a

selection. While the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and given group of students, vocabulary knowledge may either be redundant or

comprehension is well established (Davis, 1944; Thurstone, 194b; Clark, else too sparse to eliminate strong background knowledge weaknesses.

1972; Johnston, in press), surprisingly few studies have evaluated the The most convincing effect for passage specific vocabulary instruction

effect of pre-teaching key concepts on subsequent comprehension of passages comes from the work of Kameenui, et al., 1982. They found that any sort of

containing those concepts. vocabulary instruction drastically improved inferential comprehension;

With a few notable exceptions to be discussed subsequently, the further on the same measure a technique in which the vocabulary training

consistent finding in this research is that pre-teaching vocabulary by emphasized integrating word meanings with story context was superior to one

whatever means improves students' knowledge of word meanings but has little in which students were drilled on definitions.

discernible effect on passage comprehension (Jackson & Dzeyin, 1963; The work by Beck et al. (1982) shows both content specific and general

Lieberman, 1907; Tuinman & Brady, 1974; Pany & Jenkins, 1978; Jenkins, effects of vocabulary instruction on comprehension. Over a period of

Pany, & Schreck, 1978; Sylvester, 1981). several months students were given a rich intensive program of vocabulary

Exceptions to this general finding come from the work of Swaby (1977); development for about 100 words. Many of the procedures were similar to

Schachter (1978); Kameenui, Carnine, and Freschi (1982); and Beck, those used by Schachter. At the end of the training period, experimental

Perfetti, students outperformed control students on a variety of measures including

ana McKeown (1982).
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

19 20

the vocabulary and comprehension subtests of a standardized test as well as studies along a continuum of the centrality of monitoring and awareness.

on stories containing the taught vocabulary items. In the first several studies reported, the monitoring and awareness

As one looks across these various attempts at removing the roadblocks component is more peripheral than central; in the remainder, the two

of knowledge deficits, what is impressive, with a few exceptions, is how strands--explicit instruction in strategy application and awareness and

weak rather than how strong the effects are. On the whole, such monitoring of strategies--tend to be more equally balanced.

intervention seems helpful; but the effects of intervening in the Central strategy emphasis. Several researchers have attempted to help

instructional environment to activate or provide background knowledge of students acquire strategies that will make them better able to understand

one sort or another do not appear nearly as strong as the raw relationships and remember expository text. Bartlett (1978), taking to heart Meyer,

between these indices of background knowledge and comprehension. This Brandt and Bluth's (1980) dual findings that (1) good readers tend to rely

contrast in strength of relationships implies that knowledge acquired on the author's intended text structure more often than do poor readers in

gradually over time in whatever manner appears more helpful to structuring their free recall protocols, and (2) good readers remember more

comprehension than knowledge acquired in a school-like context for the information and more important information, trained junior high students to

purpose of aiding specific passage comprehension. recognize and use four common text frames (cause-effect, compare-contrast,

description, and problem-solution) to help organize recalls of expository

1
Explicit Comprehension Training Coupled with Metacognitive Awareness
passages. On transfer passages trained students were able to produce
As the title for this section implies, much of the research about
longer recalls capturing more of the important information than were
metacognitive awareness and comprehension monitoring cannot be separated
untrained students.
from research about explicit comprehension instruction. This welding of
Taylor and her colleagues (Taylor, 1982; Taylor & Beach, in press)
traditions is probably due to the fact that the researchers involved in
have conducted a series of studies in which they have trained intermediate
this research feel as though they have to train students to perform a
grade students to relate superordinate to subordinate information to try to
strategy before they can ask students to monitor its application. Also, it
build balanced summaries of expository texts. While the results vary
is difficult to suggest to students an alternative comprehension strategy
somewhat from study to study, her work on the whole tends to support modest
without discussing why it is important and how to know when you have
transfer effects to novel passage summaries for such training.
applied it appropriately. Certain instructional attempts will inevitably
Interestingly, the effect is conditioned by familiarity of content;
lead to the intertwining of these components. Indeed, Palinscar and Brown

(1983) call it an "instructional package." We have chosen to report these

 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

21 22

explanations, hansen devised three instructional treatments. In the first,

when students read novel passes, they found the strategy more effective in
a business as usual approach, average second-grade students were given a
dealing with unfamiliar than familiar content.
traditional diet of questions of about b0% literal and 20% inferential
Armbruster (1979) and Geva (1983) have used one form or another of
questions along with rather ordinary story introductions. In the second, a
a text mapping strategy to aid students to understand and remember text
practice-only treatment, literal questions were removed from these
information. Mapping, in contrast to sheer summary training, involves
children's basal reader activities altogether (they received only
selecting key content from an expository passage and representing it in
inferential questions after their stories; additionally, they were given
some sort of visual display (boxes, circles, etc.) in which relationships
ordinary story introduction). In the third, called a strategy training
among key ideas are made explicit. This task is usually done atter
group, students received the traditional question diet but, prior to each
students read. Like the work of Bartlett, students who do mapping are
story they were given alternative story introductions in which they were
forced to deal with the structure of the author's text; however, and more
asked to perform these tasks: (1) Relate what they knew (from their prior
importantly, they are forced to try to make connections among ideas even
knowledge) about what to do in circumstances like those the upcoming story
when the author has not explicitly specified those connections. As with
characters would experience, and (2) to predict what the story protagonist
the summarizing work of Taylor, the transfer effects to recall have been
would do when confronted with these critical situations from the to-be-read
modest; nonetheless, these studies consistently favor the mapping strategy
story, (3) to write down their prior knowledge answers on one sheet of
over simpler more traditional study techniques, such as reading, rereading
paper, their prediction on a second, and then weave the two together to
and taking notes, etc.
establish the metaphor that reading involves weaving together what one
Several training studies have aimed at improving children's ability
knows with what is in a text. They then read the story to compare their
and predisposition to draw inferences. Hansen (1981) began with the
predictions with what actually occurred. This final treatment represented
observation that children were best at answering the kinds of questions
an attempt to help change students' conceptions about "the process of
teachers ask most often, namely literal recall of story details (see
reading" to help them become explicitly aware of the "known to new"
Guszak, 1967). She wondered whether this observation resulted from an
principle and to allow them to apply this principle.
accident of children's instructional history (they have more practice at
On four different measures including, notably, a standardized reading
literal questions), the fact that literal questions are inherently easier
comprehension test, hansen found that the two experimental groups
than inferential questions, or the fact that children are simply unaware of
outperformed the control group. The conclusion from these data is that
how to go about drawing inferences. To sort out the competing
inference performance, even for young students, is amenable to alteration,
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

23 24

either through direct strategy training or through changing the kinds of structural schemata (helping students develop an abstract framework for

questions they practice answering. what is entailed in a story) before and after reading.

In a follow-up, Hansen and Pearson (in press) combined the earlier The results of Gordon and Pearson's work were consistent with those

strategy training and question practice approaches into a single treatment. obtained by Hansen and Pearson (Hansen, 1981; Hansen & Pearson, in press).

They trained four teachers to administer the treatments instead of teaching There were statistically reliable differences favoring the inference

the classes themselves, as hansen had done earlier. Also, they used good training group on new inference items derived from the instructional

and poor fourth-grade readers instead of average second-grade students. stories. Also high achieving but not low achieving students in that group

The combined approach proved somewhat advantageous for good readers in did better than other groups on inference items on several posttests

comparison to the control group. However, it proved extremely effective involving novel passages and no instruction. The most remarkable

for the poor readers. Poor readers in the experimental group exceeded differences, however, favored the schemata activation group on the free

their control counterparts on inference measures taken from the materials recall protocols; their scores were often two or three standard deviations

in which the instruction was embedded as well on measures from three new above the inference group and the control group, particularly on recall

passages on which no instruction had been offered. From these data, and measures which were sensitive to the development and use of a story schema.

the data from the earlier study, Hansen and Pearson concluded that younger Significant differences favoring the experimental groups on a standardized

and older poor readers benefit from explicit attempts to alter test surfaced only for the very best readers.

comprehension strategies; older good readers, on the other hand, did not An interesting conclusion one can draw from the Gordon and Pearson

seem to benefit nearly so much, perhaps because they have developed data has to do with the specificity of transfer of training results. Note

adequate strategies on their own. that students trained to draw inferences got better at that task while

Gordon and Pearson (1983) pushed the inference training paradigm into students forced to activate both topical and structural schemata got better

an even more explicit mold. Over a period of eight weeks, they contrasted at storing and retrieving story information.

the effects of a group explicitly trained to draw inferences with a control Balanced emphasis on strategy and monitoring with awareness. Raphael

group that received language experience and immersion activities, and a and Pearson (19b2) applied a more general approach to both literal and

second experimental group whose instruction focused on activating and fine- inference questions. During four 45-minute sessions 4th-, 6th-, and 8th-

tuning content schemata (the topics addressed in the stories) and grade students were taught to distinguish between questions that required,

in different measure, information in the text versus knowledge the child

 Comprehension Instruction
Comprehension Instruction

25
26

already had. The children learned to generate answers to questions that

A study conducted by Day (1980) provides an interesting application of
invited textually explicit answers (derive an answer from the same text
many of these same issues about instructional effectiveness with a very
sentence from which the question was generated), textually-implicit answers
different population and a very different instructional objective.
(derive an answer from a Working
text sentence different from the one from which
with low ability community college stu'dents, Day (1980) contrasted
the question was derived), or scriptally-implicit answers (derive an answer

approaches to training students to write summaries for prose passages. The

from one's store of prior knowledge). The three types of questions were
treatments differed systematically from one another in terms of how rules
labeled RIGHT THERE, THINK AND SEARCH, and ON MY OWN, respectively.
for writing summaries were integrated with self-management strategies
Using a Model --- Guided Practice --- Independent Practice --- Direct
designed to help students monitor their own progress in summary writing.
Feedback instructional design, they taught the students to apply the
Treatment 1 consisted of self-management alone (a fairly traditional self-
strategy to increasingly longer texts, ranging from one paragraph to 600

checking procedure to determine whether the summary conveyed the

words, with an increasingly larger number of questions per lesson, and
information the student intended to convey). Treatment 2 was rules alone;
increasingly fewer feedback prompts from the instructor. For each answer

that is, subjects were trained to use van Dijk and Kintsch's (1978) five
given, students were also asked to judge which of the three strategies they
rules for summarizing text: delete redundancy, delete irrelevancies,
had used to generate the answer. On all of the comprehension measures
subordinate subtopics, select topic sentences, create topic sentences.
there were reliable differences favoring the training group over the
Treatment 3 simply put Treatments 1 and 2 together in sequence. First do
control group. Trained students got better at discriminating questions of
one, then do the other. Treatment 4 integrated the rules and self-
the different types, evaluating their own question-answering behavior, and
management strategies into a single coherent routine. One might say that
giving quality responses. Raphael and Pearson concluded that students had
the four treatments varied along a continuum of integration of explicit
developed improved comprehension and comprehension monitoring strategies
training and explicit monitoring devices. A model --- practice ---
that gave then more control over the kind of routine question answering
feedback instructional design was used. The data from the experiment
activity they experience daily in basal reader and content area material.
showed that overall the integrated treatment produced the greatest gains
Raphael, Wonacutt and Pearson (1983) have extended this paradigm
from pretest to posttest. Day concluded that, particularly with slower
by training teachers to apply this strategy with fourth grade students.
students, ".. . explicit training in strategies for accomplishing a task
Again, evaluation of several pre- and posttest measures demonstrated that
coupled with routines to oversee the successful application of those
trained students performed better than untrained students on both
strategies is clearly the best approach" (p. 15).
monitoring and comprehension tasks.
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

27 28

Palincsar and Brown (1983) evaluated the effects of explicit

the classroom setting (regular social studies and science assignments) for
instruction (modeling and corrective feedback) of four comprehension
five of the six students in Study 1.
monitoring activities with learning disabled junior high students who were
The results of this investigation provide further support to a small
efficient at decoding but deficient in comprehension. The four activities
body of instructional research in reading comprehension which suggests
included summarizing, question generating, predicting what might be
that students can indeed, through explicit instruction, be taught to
discussed next in the text, and clarifying unclear text. The activities
acquire and independently apply reading strategies which will enhance
were taught through a procedure referred to as reciprocal teaching; the
reading comprehension.
teacher and students took turns assuming the role of teacher in a dialogue
These instructional experiments (particularly the last three) appear
about segments of expository texts.
to warrant the conclusion that we can teach comprehension skills if we are
The research involved two studies. Both studies employed a multiple
able to define them carefully, model for students methods they can use to
baseline across groups. All students experienced four conditions:
complete skill activities, offer plenty of guided practice (with the teacher
baseline, intervention, maintenance, and follow-up. In Study 1 the
offering feedback as the tasks are completed), and then allow students to
investigator worked with six students, in pairs, in a setting analogous to
practice the skills on their own.
a resource room. In Study 2, four reading teachers worked with a total of
One final comment about this line of work: taken together, these
21 remedial reading middle school students in small groups in their
studies suggest that when learning has occurred, it has been through the
classrooms.
repetition of a cycle of instructional events--explanation, guided
They tound that students' ability to answer comprehension questions,
practice, corrective feedback, independent practice and application. It is
as assessed on passages independent of the training materials, improved
not simply a matter of increasing the amount of instruction as Durkin's
significantly, they typically achieved 70% accuracy the fifteenth day of
work reviewed earlier invites us to conclude (Durkin, 197b-79). Rather, it
training. The effects were also apparent on an eight week delayed measure.
is the entire instructional framework which integrates all these components
Students' verbal behavior during training indicated that they became more
for students that leads to effective and independent strategy use.
adept with summarizing and question generating as the intervention

progressed. Also modest but reliable transfer was suggested on three or Program Evaluations

four tasks similar to but distinct from (in terms of content) the training There have been two projects in which after new ideas about reading

tasks. Finally, gains observed in the experimental setting generalized to comprehension have been incorporated into a curriculum, the more or less

long-term effects of that curriculum have been evaluated against competing

 Comprehension Instruction
Comprehension Instruction
29
30

curricula. The first project is located in Honolulu, and the effects of these fuzzier areas that these two evaluation projects have claimed to

the new curriculum have been studied over a five year period. apply these principles.
The second,
located in Michigan, was evaluated over a single school year with a The Kamehameha Early Education Project (KEEP) has been discussed

follow-up eight months after the project ended. both claim to have used extensively in two recent articles (Tharp, 1982; Au & Mason, 1981). KEEP

elements of the "direct instruction" model used in the Follow-through claims to operate a direct instruction model that focuses primarily
on

Studies of the Seventies comparing DISTAk with other compensatory programs comprehension, but with instruction that is both child focused and task

(Becker, 1977) and reviewed by kosenshine (1979) among others. focused.

The direct
instruction model, according to Rosenshine, includes these features: Two characteristics of the KEEP program make it particularly

1. A complex skill is broken down into small steps interesting to instructional researchers: (1) Its students have been high-

2. For each step the teacher risk, low-income, native Hawaiian children; and (2) it is remarkably

a. demonstrates how it should be performed effective in increasing student performance as measured by standardized

b. conducts guided practice lessons (working through examples tests (Tharp, 1982). The program has evolved over several years, with each
of
step application with the students) succeeding cohort of students gaining over (or maintaining equity with) its

c. provides for independent practice or application (mostly immediate predecessor. It is labeled a direct instruction model, though it
to
promote automatic skill application) lacks several of the characteristics of direct instruction as defined by

d. feedback (in the form of correction and information about how others (cf. kosenshine, 1979). What it does have are these

to apply a step) occurs in steps (a) through (c) but characteristics: (a) At least 20 minutes per day (and about 2/3 of the
is most

prevalent in (b). total time any given teacher spends interacting with a group of students)

Rosenshine has concluded that much of the process/product is devoted to comprehension activity (usually focused on story
research supports discussion)

the steps involved in the direct instruction model (i.e., with each reading group (&-3). (b) Instruction occurs in small (5 < N <
these behaviors

are positively correlated with achievement gain), 10) groups. (c) Much of the instruction occurs during story discussion;
but only for certain

skill areas (e.g., decoding or math) in which it that is, what distinguishes KEEP from other programs
is possible to break is the systematic use

complex skills down into ranageable and psychologically of thought-provoking questions. The questions form a "line of
real subskills. He questions,"

is pessimistic about applying the model to fuzzier thus avoiding the problems pointed out by Durkin (1978-79) and Beck et al.
areas like

comprehension, composition, or creativity. Nonetheless, it (1979). (d) The program has been designed to maximize consistency with
is precisely to

native Hawaiian culture. Notably, whereas most'teachers use participation

 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

31
32

goals of reading, (b) strategies for comprehension and (c) strategies to

structures in which one person (teacher or student) at a time has the
"fix-up" comprehension failures. Instruction related to each of these
floor, teachers in this program allow responses and comments and questions

from two or more students at a time and from the joint effort of two or goals was provided sequentially over the 20 weeks. For each week's lesson,

they followed certain principles derivable from work on direct instruction

more students (Au & Mason, 1961). (e) Student progress (via criterion-
(cf. p. 28). First, they used a metaphor designed to help make each
referenced tests) and teacher adherence to suggested methods (via
principle concrete. For example, for two of the weekly lessons involving
observation) are monitored regularly and intensively.
"understanding the goals and plans of reading," they provided a bulletin
The program emphasizes high engagement rates, extensive monitoring,
board display (complete with picture) with the metaphors "reading is Like a
and group instruction. However, unlike DISTAR there are no explicit rules
Puzzle," and "A Bag Full of Tricks for Reading." Second, they provided
(general cases) taught for completing comprehension tasks and the model-

lead-test framework is not adhered to in any serious way. teachers and students with a set of focal questions pertaining to
The KEEP program

really uses an inundation-discovery approach to improving comprehension. application of the week's principle. Third, teachers discussed the

objective for each week's lesson early and often. Fourth, teachers held
The rationale seems to be, if students are constantly barraged with well-
numerous discussions throughout the week focusing first on group attempts
conceived interrogations of text,-eventually they will learn what to attend
to apply the principle and later on how well various individuals had
to when they read texts on their own. In some ways, the KEEP project is
actually applied the principle during practice activities. Finally,
similar to the Question-Practice Group in the Hansen (19bl) study reported

earlier. On the other hand, the data suggests that a frontal assault on students had lots of opportunity for practice and feedback related to each

comprehension oriented activity encouraged growth in comprehension, with no principle. In short, there was a high level of student involvement and

interaction.
apparent decrement on decoding skills, which are mainly taught in
The effects in comparison with a placebo control group were reliable,
individual exercises.
robust, and enduring. On measures of strategy knowledge and use (including
The closest approximation of a "curriculum program" in explicit
think-aloud protocols as well as multiple choice tests), experimenter-
comprehension instruction coupled with metacognitive awareness and
designed measures of reading comprehension closely allied to the trained
comprehension monitoring training comes from the work of Paris and his
tasks, and more distant measures of transfer such as cloze tests and a
colleagues at Michigan (Paris, Lipson, Cross, Jacobs, De Britto, & Oka,
standardized reading tests, the experimental groups' performance exceeded
1982). They developed a twenty week "course" for third- and fifth-grade
that of the control group. Furthermore, these effects were still reliable
students designed to improve the control over and understanding of (a) the
in a follow-up battery given eight months later.
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

33 34

The interesting thing to note about these conclusions is their The key question for instruction is whether one ought to bother to

similarity with those derived from the previous section on instructional

offer explicit training to improve either comprehension or monitoring

experiments. While the tasks in the two sets of studies are sometimes strategies; after all, the longer people stay in school, the better they

different, the principles leading to effective performance are remarkably get at all these behaviors, even in the apparent absence of any training.

similar. Explicit instruction associated with guided practice, lots of In other words, sheer practice (or perhaps even just getting older) seems

opportunity to practice and apply strategies independently, as well as some to elicit stronger performance.

attention to monitoring the application of such strategies seems to help Sheer practice, however, may be beneficial only for that subset of

students perform better on a variety of comprehension measures. students already well on their way to success; having developed appropriate

strategies spontaneously, practice helps them fine tune their repertoire of

Summary and Conclusions
successful strategies. however, if poor readers do little but practice
From our examination of these tour research traditions, certain
what they already do, they may actually strengthen their already
generalizations seen warranted.

inappropriate strategies and behaviors. it is possible that the "practice

Existential proofs comparing good and poor readers or older and
only" approach underlying current instruction may promote a "rich get
younger readers have established that several behaviors related to strategy
richer and poor get poorer" phenomenon. 'he success or explicit training
use and monitoring discriminate the mature from the novice and the good

procedures for low achievers (Day, 1980; Hansen & Pearson, in press;
from the poor reader. Older and better readers (a) are more effective at
Palincsar & Brown, 1983; Tharp, 1982) suggests an alternative instructional
engaging background knowledge, (b) have better general and specific

vocabularies, philosophy at least for students who are at risk in one way or another.
(c) are better at drawing inferences, (d) have better

What appears warranted from all these studies is a particular model of

summarization skills, (e) can use text structure more effectively to
instruction which we have extrapolated from Campione (1981). Figure 1
produce more complete recall protocols, (f) know more about the strategies

depicts graphically its essential features. Any academic task can be

they employ to answer questions, and (g) in general, are better at
conceptualized as requiring differing proportions of teacher and student
monitoring and adjusting whatever strategies they use. On the other hand,

existential descriptions of classroom practice and manual suggestions have

Insert Figure I about here.
established the fact that very little in the way of explicit teaching of

either comprehension strategies or strategies for monitoring comprehension

occur.
 Comprehension Instruction Comprehension Instruction

35 36

teacher did (a) and (b) while students did (c) and (d); in stage (3), the
responsibility for successful completion. The diagonal line on the graph
teacher took responsibility for (a) and (c) and the students, (b) and (d);
represents a journey from total teacher responsibility (on the far left) to
finally in stage 4, the students did all but (a).
total student responsibility (on the far right). When the teacher is
In Palincsar and Brown's (1963) work, the gradual release was
taking all or most of the responsibility for task completion, he is
accomplished in a reciprocal teaching milieu. The end goal was to get LD
"modeling" or demonstrating the desired application of some strategy. When
and remedial middle school students to perform four tasks for any given
the student is taking all or most of that responsibility, she is
expository passage: (1) summarize it, (2) ask a few questions about it,
"practicing" or "applying" that strategy. What comes in between these two
(3) detect difficult portions and (4) predict what the next part was going
extremes is the gradual release of responsibility from teacher to student,
to be about. First, the teacher was the "teacher;" when he was, he guided
or-what Rosenshine might call "guided practice." The hope in the model is
the discussion that led to closure on these four tasks. After a few models
that every student gets to the point where she is able to accept total
by the teacher, students took the role of "teacher" and assumed the
responsibility for the task, including the responsibility for determining
responsibility for guiding the discussion related to these four common
whether or not she is applying the strategy appropriately (i.e, self-
tasks. As the work progressed the teacher (not the student "teacher")
monitoring). But the model assumes that she will need some guidance in
faded more and more into the woodwork as the students became more confident
reaching that stage of independence and that it is precisely the teacher's
in assuming the "teacher" role. in both these instances, the students
role to provide such guidance. unly partly in jest we like to refer to the
learned to do what the experimenters wanted them to learn to do with
model as a model of "planned obsolescence" on the part of the teacher; but
remarkable success.
just because you want to end up being obsolete doesn't mean you have to
In the work of Paris et al. (Note 4), the release was accomplished via
start out by being obsolete!
the practice/feedback discussion sessions, as it was in the work of Raphael
The critical stage of the model is the "guided practice," the stage in
(Raphael & Pearson, 19b2; Raphael, vonacutt & Pearson, 1983).
which the teacher gradually releases task responsibility to students. In
What does this model share with the Kosenshine model of direct
the Gordon and Pearson (19bj) study that release was accomplished by
instruction? The stages are quite similar; modeling guided practice, and
conceptualizing an inference task as involving tour components: (a) posing
independent practice or application are features of both. Feedback at
a question, (b) answering it, (c) finding evidence, and (d) giving the
stages is critical (even when the teacher is not the "teacher" he must
reasoning for how to get from the evidence to the answer. In stage (1),
provide feedback about how well the group is accomplishing its goals along
Modeling, the teacher did all four tasks (a) - (d);in stage (2), the
the way). How does this model difrer trom direct instruction? There is no
 Comprehension Instruction
Comprehension Instruction
37
38

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Footnotes
middle grade students comprehension and production of expository text.

Reading Research Quarterly, in press. The research reported herein was supported in part by the National

Tharp, R. G. The effective instruction of comprehension: Results and Institute of Education under Contract No. NIE 400-81-0030. A modified

description of the Kamehameha Early Education Program. Reading -version of this paper appears in Contemporary Educational Psychology,

Research Quarterly, 1982, 17, 503-527. 1983, 8, 317-345.

Thorndyke, P. W. Cognitive structures in comprehension and memory of Much of this section is derived from an earlier, broader review of

narrative discourse. Cognitive Psychology, 1977, 9, 77-110. general models of instructional research in reading (Pearson & Tierney, in

Thurstone, L. L. A note on a reanalysis of Dairs' reading tests. press). What differs is the context and purpose which the data serve.

Psychometrika, 1946, 11, 185-188.

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(Tech. Rep. No. 187). Urbana: University of Illinois, Center for the

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