Findings indicate that different readability formulas will not record the same degree of change in readability level if easier synonyms are inserted, sentences shortened, or text rewritten for simplification. (MKM)

A study of the application forms for Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, public assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, and Medicare was conducted to examine the frequently occurring unfamiliar, specialized vocabulary words. It was found that 76 such words occurred at least ten times in the documents studied. A large number of other…

The Fry Readability Graph was used to assess the approximate readability level of each of 23 selected instructions, publications, and forms commonly used by adults in order to compare their readability levels with the minimum literacy level as defined by the United States Office of Education (approximately the eighth grade level). The results…

The authors question the furor over declining reading scores, since their study of the daily reading materials of white collar, skilled labor, unskilled labor, and retail personnel indicated little need for these job holders to function at more than a sixth-grade reading level. (Editor/SJL)

Two experimental designs were used to test the hypothesis that abbreviations in classified advertisements decrease the reader's comprehension of such ads. In the first experimental design, 73 high school students read four ads (for employment, used cars, apartments for rent, and articles for sale) either with abbreviations or with all…

Twenty-four adults participated in an experiment to determine the difficulty of conditional sentences of the kinds frequently found in the instructions in government forms. The stimulus materials were 128 sentence frames of the form, "If you are X, press button Y," where X was replaced by sixteen different coordinate structures. These…

Prompted by concern that the State of New Jersey driver's manual was too difficult for many low-skilled readers to read and comprehend, a study was conducted in which chapter 6 of the driver's manual was rewritten, lowering its readability level from grade 8 to grade 6. It was hypothesized that significant differences in comprehension would result…

The Conference on Reading and Readability Research in the Armed Services brought together reading, technical writing, and readability experts from civilian research and development (R & D) centers with R & D specialists from the armed services for discussion of reading and text-design problems in the military. This report of the proceedings…

The five articles contained in this journal issue deal with basic/survival reading skills. Specific topics covered in the articles are an overview of survival reading, the reading habits of college students, a principal's view of reading instruction, a healthy self-concept as a basic survival skill, and a readability rating list for teacher-made…