This paper presents evidence confirming the validity of the RD design in the Reading Recovery study by examining the ability of the RD design to replicate the 1st grade results observed in the original i3 RCT focused on short-term impacts. Over 1,800 schools participated in the RD study over all four cohort years. The RD design used cutoff-based…

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) can be used to score oral reading fuency (ORF) assessments to ameliorate current inadequacies (e.g., administration errors, high opportunity cost), and represents an important part of a larger solution to improve traditional ORF. But more research is needed on how ASR performs for diverse student groups. The…

The Flesch readability formula was used to analyze 192 100-word samples from selected matching issues of "Time" and "Newsweek." It was hypothesized that "immediate-reward" types of news, such as sports, social, and human interest events, would be significantly more readable (fewer syllables per 100 words and fewer…

A comparative-historical perspective was used in analyzing the readabilities of three newspapers and three magazines. A total of 270 100-word samples were collected from the Chicago "Tribune," the New York "Times," the Memphis "Commercial Appeal,""Cosmopolitan,""Atlantic Monthly," and…

The 42 teachers enrolled in a graduate reading course participated in a study examining the application of the Rauding Scale and the SEER technique, two global readability procedures. After a lecture on the topic of readability, the teachers rated eight passages with both readability formulas, and these ratings were compared to the predetermined…

Richard Hoggart calls for "creative reading"--meaning "recognizing that some books are better than others." Those influenced by Paulo Freire call for "critical reading," meaning that what matters is that readers are encouraged to "read the word and the world." Hoggart and Freire give a clear idea of what…

As universities gain access to satellite delivery systems, faculty are asking questions about how information processing varies between print versus television delivery systems. A study compared 68 undergradaute adults' information processing activity when the same message is presented in print vs. on television. Results reveal little differences…

A study tested the notion that information stories in "USA Today" are more readable because its editors shorten them by leaving out background details. It also examined whether readers comprehend as much from stories written in "USA Today" style as they do from stories written in the more traditional "New York Times"…

A study examined whether conclusions about constructive processes in reading based on analysis of group data were consistent with those based on an analysis of individual data. Subjects, selected from a larger sample of 45 first grade students who had participated in a longitudinal study on acquisition of linguistic procedures for printed words,…

Noting the differences in processing information by reading and by listening, two studies examined subjects' ability to detect errors in written and oral prose. In both experiments, college students were presented with four expository passages drawn from different written sources. All passages were approximately 300 words and 5 paragraphs long,…

To determine the educationally related characteristics and relationships among selected variables that describe the United States Navy's recruit population, data were obtained on 84,123 recruits who entered the Navy between June 1981 and May 1982. Data were obtained from the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Comprehension Test and the Armed Forces…

Two experiments investigated the effectiveness of reading backwards as a proofreading technique. Experiment 1 examined the general usefulness of backwards vs. forwards proofreading strategies and the effects of these strategies for two types of typographical errors: misspellings and contextual errors. Subjects, 36 undergraduate students at a…

A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of priming, using the first of several metaphors with common ground (the relationship or similar characteristics between the subject of a metaphor and the term used metaphorically) to facilitate comprehension of successive related metaphors. Ten groups of three to five metaphors with common…

The first part of this paper on prose analysis explains how structural analysis of text can be used in reading research. This explanation focuses on three methodological uses of prose analysis: (1) the identification of the content and organization of the text for use in a scoring system, (2) the measurement of variations between the text and the…

A study was conducted to determine the effect of using a space test (marking word boundaries, a task involving setting aside words from the context of a sentence) as a measure of reading ability. Subjects in the study were 138 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students. The students were randomly divided into two groups so that one group completed…