As part of an international effort to develop theory and best practices for teaching languages, the U.S. military has, since the American Revolution, been a leading supporter of literacy education to improve the job performance of soldiers. One important aspect of literacy education today--which continues to be a priority for government agencies,…

Noting that the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI) has been involved in research on reading assessment in the Army from both practical and theoretical perspectives, this paper addresses practical Army problems in reading assessment from a theory base that reflects the most recent and most sound…

This report describes how to apply techniques that have been used in measuring the readability/comprehensibility and reading level of textural materials. A review of available readability/comprehensibility measurement techniques and of previous experimental studies into methods for developing such techniques is presented. As a result of this…

This report describes an auding and reading model that accounts for the development of receptive oracy and literacy skills. The model presents a classification scheme for the development of reading and auding skills which considers basic adaptive processes, languaging precursors, and languaging processes. Four hypotheses consistent with the model…

This technical memorandum presents an outline of how to apply psycholinguistic and intellective concepts in order to enhance the readability and comprehensibility of written materials. Guidelines for making the reader's task easier are provided, and some readability measurement procedures are also discussed. The contents include: "Increasing…

The FORCAST readability index was developed and cross validated on technical job reading materials and job candidates. Several structural properties of passages were related to passage readability defined as the lowest measured reading grade level at which half the readers met a standard cloze criterion on the passage. The simple, single variable…

One of six related documents, this publication contains a U.S. Air Force course designed to help students improve their reading skills. The chapters contain lessons on reading habits and how they affect the reader, exercises to identify one's reading speed, an improvement program, exercises to improve eye movement and to reduce eye fixations,…

A previous report defined a series of 14 novel measures for determining the comprehensibility of English text on the basis of current psycholinguistic and Structure-of-Intellect concepts. That report not only suggested the potential usefulness of the measures but also conjectured about the feasibility of automating the calculation of these…

This literature review documents the state-of-the-art of readability assessment and indicates directions for future research in readability measurement. The period since 1953 is emphasized, although there is some consideration of earlier work. Primary emphasis within the review is based on readability measurement; however, a final section is…

Having implemented a testing procedure using the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests to identify recruits with reading deficiencies, the United States Navy conducted a study comparing the performance of recruits on three different reading tests. A total of 716 recruits completed the comprehension portion of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests, the Tests…

One of six related documents, this publication contains a U.S. Air Force course on communication skills. The course presented is one of three in a program based on the following educational goals for each student: (1) comprehend the principles of effective communication; (2) know some of the factors that enter into international relations,…

Efficacious features claimed by experts who had rewritten texts were evaluated in 3 experiments involving 700 undergraduates and 52 instructional texts about Army job tasks. Some experts evidently had effective knowledge about improving text, but it was primarily procedural. (SLD)

In response to the assessed need for improving the basic academic skills of United States Navy personnel, a project was undertaken to develop a relevant remedial reading workbook for Navy recruit training commands (RTCs). The workbook was designed to augment existing commercial nonmilitary oriented remedial reading materials that were being used…