Tests the hypothesis that there is reason for teachers to be concerned with the interrelation of audience conditions, the probability of success, and the degree of fear of failure influencing reading persistence in boys. (Author/RB)

Reviews research concerned with factors contributing to the reading success and failure of children. (FL)

A large body of research evidence highlights the required conditions for children to become skilled readers. Within the past decade, research also has uncovered the fact that the origins of skilled reading begin to develop even before children start school. The intent of this article is to provide a brief summary of what is known about the…

Examines data collected on the connection between second-grade children's conceptions of reading, reading group experiences, and success in reading. Notes consistent differences in the perceptions of high and low achievement groups' conceptions of reading. Finds a direct, if qualified, correspondence between student conceptions and experiences.…

Word recognition and reading failure are examined in this report using an interactive framework of the reading process based on the premise that reading is both a top-down and a bottom-up process, both conceptually guided and graphically based. Experiments are discussed that show that less-skilled readers are affected by anomalous contexts and…

Offers a case study of one student's struggles with the demands of school literacy throughout his primary school years. Illustrates how such children rely on the innovation, energy, and good will of individual teachers; and how his fragile literacy is under threat in the transition to more fragmented learning environment of secondary school. (SR)

The series of studies discussed here was designed to provide an extensive investigation into the hypothesis that reading disabilities and deficits in selective attention are related. Three studies were carried out on three different groups of children from first grade through sixth grade, and five different tasks were employed. Subjects were…

This report describes the efforts of the California State Department of Education in response to a 1975-76 evaluation report which indicated that in some schools, third grade reading scores were declining--specifically in schools whose entering students averaged below the twentieth percentile on the 1973-74 Entry Level Test (ELT) after three years…

Recent research indicates the centrality of "attending" as a variable in reading acquisition. Attending is, in fact, more important than such traditionally accepted influences as intelligence, cognitive style, attitudes, and language background. Differences in attending behavior, which are molded through match and mismatch of expectations with…

Examines research on comparative differences in reading disabilities to determine whether findings corroborate the belief that learning to read in Japanese produces fewer reading disabilities resulting from its writing system. Suggests that there is no perfect orthography and that a small percentage of children will have difficulty in learning to…

This review of literature on stress and reading disabilities covers some affective research and theoretical footings. The research is considered in terms of historical research foundations (up to 1979) and recent research findings (1979-1989). The literature relates emotional stress either as cause, effect, or a concomitant aspect of reading…

Intended to be of help to teachers who deal with students having problems in reading, this annotated bibliography examines research findings on the relationship between reading achievement and self-concept in elementary students. The introductory portion states the problem and the purpose of the study, as well as its limitations and organization.…

Features of a model of reading that is both sensitive to individual differences and consistent with the assumption that reading processes are interactive are discussed in this report. A description of how this model accounts for individual differences in reading skill suggests three types of reading problems: slow word decoding, slow sentence…

Targeted to a wide audience, this book is a highly readable, nontechnical work without sacrificing the informative value offered by the relevant empirical research. The book is organized into three sections that discuss why it's difficult to learn to read; existing scientific evidence in reading research; and practical solutions, based on the…

A study determined classroom teachers' opinions of causal factors of reading failure and reported their attitudes on the major issues in reading instruction as suggested in current research. A representative sample of 100 elementary classroom teachers from School District #299 in the Chicago, Illinois area were sent the Ross Reading Survey. A…