This report summarizes and compares four studies of reader response reported between 1975 and 1978. The studies include (1) "Five Readers Reading," by Norman Holland; (2) "Individual and Group Responses of Fourteen- and Fifteen-Year Olds," by Anthony Petrosky; (3) "Describing Responses to Works of Fiction," by Lee Odell and Charles R. Cooper; and (4) "Subjective Criticism," by David Bleich. The report is comprised of six main divisions: an introduction, a chapter on each of the four metareading studies, and a summary chapter in which the conclusions about the differences and similarities among these studies and the state of response research in general are reached. The four chapters in which the investigations are presented each contain descriptions of the following aspects of the studies: scope or intent, structure, methods and procedures, theoretical approaches, and conclusions. (HOD)