The following insights into the reading skills of 312 participants in adult basic and secondary education programs are based on a principal components analysis of reading components' contributions to variance in reading comprehension. Overall, 75% of variance was explained by four composite variables representing word skills, language…

The article describes activities (such as reading and interpreting restaurant menus) designed to teach survival skills to secondary special education students. (CL)

Students draw upon their experience and community resources in this program designed to prepare them for living on their own. (JM)

How-to-do-it monologues and tasks based on actual job reading give students needed practice in relating reading to job activities. (SK)

Discusses practical strategies reading teachers may employ in dealing with state-mandated minimal reading requirements. Includes cautions and suggestions for dealing with test limitations. (TJ)

Describes an investigation that showed that abbreviations in classified ads are difficult to comprehend and suggests that instruction be given in understanding abbreviations as a real life reading skill. (MKM)

Discusses the minimum competency movement and suggests standards for constructing and implementing exit competency requirements. (MKM)

Suggestions from readers include a list of 144 practical things to read, and ways to use sustained silent reading in the secondary school classroom. (MKM)

The functional literacy of various groups of 17-year-old students was assessed to discover whether the reading skills which are usually taught in the schools are adequate for functioning in everyday life. Eighty-six test exercises were classified according to the various formats of reading materials they represent and according to the types of…

This research studied the effectiveness of a taxonomy of literature and specific arts upon aspects of functional and creative reading in secondary school students. Two experimental groups (taxonomy and enrichment) and one control group (traditional) were used. All of the students in the study were pretested with tests measuring creative and…

Presents a test on abbreviations used in classified employment advertisements which may be used in survival reading skills instruction. (MKM)

Suggests that competency reading programs should be based on a definition of functional reading that applies reading skills to real-life tasks, that materials should be real and timely, and that activities should center on finding meaning. (MKM)

Presents a taxonomy of graphs, including lineal, quantitative, spatial, pictorial, hypothetical, and omitted graphs. Provides illustrations of each kind of graph and suggests that reading teachers take the responsibility for teaching graph reading and drawing skills. (MKM)

Key words from product warning labels were taught to four adolescents with moderate mental disabilities using flash cards and a progressive time-delay procedure. Although students mastered the words in a relatively short time with minimal errors, generalization probe data with actual products across settings revealed the need for instruction to…

These thoughts, by an author of a paper (EC 611 428) on teaching adolescents with moderate mental retardation to read key warning label words, focus on the importance of teaching for generalization or teaching word recognition using actual labels and encouraging an appropriate behavioral response. (DB)