This quantitative study conducted in the ESL program at a large community college investigated the symbiotic relationship between reading and second-language learning from the perspective of the class of post-secondary functional bilinguals sometimes referred to as Generation 1.5. These students are long-term, resident second-language (L2) English…

Children with perceptual handicaps are often taught reading in the same manner as children in regular school placements. To present a description of the oral reading of such children, five were selected using the I.T.P.A., the Frostig, and the comments of a neurologist. They each read a story orally, and retold the story, following the reading. A…

The purpose of this investigation was to examine syntax comprehension by poor and average prereaders in first grade and poor and average readers in second grade, to determine whether a relationship exists between reading ability or reading readiness and comprehension of syntax. Subjects were 55 first-grade children and 56 second-grade children of…

One of the problems found in present readability formulas is the lack of control for syntax, other than sentence length. Judging the complexity of a sentence based on word count alone does not allow for such circumstances as: coordinate clauses joined by "and"; deletions; passive forms; and coordinate clauses, dependent clauses, and…

Details a study designed to determine the effects of passage content (schemata) and syntactic structure (clause order) on the inferential comprehension of causal relations of fifth grade students. (FL)

This study attempted to validate both the Fry-Kernel Distance Theory and the De Pierro findings, in determining the suitability of text material for the students to be instructed. First-year community college students were presented with sentences arranged in pairs, each representing two of four prescribed types. Subjects were to select the harder…

Presents results from an experiment designed to extend the study of the relationship between the syntactic sophistication of the student and the material being read. (TO)

Sixty tenth graders participated in this study of relationships between eye/voice span, phrase and clause boundaries, reading ability, and sentence structure. Results indicated that sentences apparently are "chunked" into surface constituents during processing. Better tenth grade readers had longer eye/voice spans than did poorer readers and…

Examines whether significant differences existed between the semantic, syntactic, and paragraph reading abilities of learning/reading disordered and normally achieving elementary school students. (FL)

The information in this volume documents the author's extensive series of investigations concerning the syntactic abilities of good readers compared to dyslexics with reading comprehension difficulties. Findings corroborate the importance of syntactic ability in the reading process and confirm Goodman's psycholinguistic model of reading. Chapters…

This study attempted to determine if reading ability and grade level differences accounted for differences in the word associations and written syntactic structures of 180 selected students. The study also investigated the relationship of semantic associations and syntactic complexity. An oral, free word association test was used to measure…

Syntactic and semantic cueing were examined as used in oral reading by 30 college freshmen, half of whom were higher in vocabulary on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test and half of whom were higher in comprehension scores on the same test. The subjects were selected from 168 freshmen, all of whom were poor readers and spoke predominantly English. All…

Finds significantly more errors and a higher percentage of detrimental errors on passages composed of later appearing structures. Supports Goodman's view of the reading process (that reading is a "psycholinguistic guessing game"), and indicates a need for more sophisticated readability formulas. (RL)

Knowledge of derivational morphology can aid readers in the analysis and acquisition of new vocabulary, in lexical access, and in establishing the syntactic structure of sentences. A study investigated good and poor readers' knowledge and use of derivational suffixes in establishing sentence level syntax. Subjects, 123 10th and 11th grade…