Several implications of this study apply to any individual receiving reading instruction in an adult literacy program or in a formalized educational setting, such as college or high school. Adult readers might benefit from strategies in which they are taught how to distinguish between reading for importance and reading for interest. Additionally, assisting adult readers in recognizing main ideas and in identifying supporting details versus "seductive" details may be useful. Instructional strategies, such as graphic organizers and think-aloud protocols for understanding text structure, can be employed for this purpose. Readings taken from humanities, social science, and natural science textbooks can be practice materials. Those selections written in a mixed context can be modeled with students to demonstrate how paragraphs are related logically. Direct instruction in locating the main idea of a selection and identifying major details can be demonstrated using mixed text passages. Such instruction can aid readers in seeing the logical connection between the main idea and major details and their effect on the relationship between importance and interest. Further modeling can be used to help readers distinguish between major details that support, prove, and explain the author's message and minor details that act as fillers of information in a selection.

Educators can also assist readers to distinguish between expository text and narration and how these modes of discourse can influence reader assessment of interest and importance. Readers can be shown how their background of experiences and prior knowledge about a particular topic can affect the interest and importance of a selection and their understanding of textual information.

References

Appendix A - pdf

Appendix B - pdf

Appendix C - pdf

Appendix D - pdf