Readers often struggle to identify the main ideas in expository texts. Existing research and instruction provide some guidance on how to encourage readers to identify main ideas. However, there is substantial variability in how main ideas are operationalized and how readers are prompted to identify main ideas. This variability hinders…

Readers often struggle to identify the main ideas in expository texts. Existing research and instruction provide some guidance on how to encourage readers to identify main ideas. However, there is substantial variability in how main ideas are operationalized and how readers are prompted to identify main ideas. This variability hinders…

Empirical research has shown that poor comprehenders use reading strategies less frequently than good comprehenders. Moreover, poor comprehenders tend to use simple strategies (e.g. slowing down reading when the text is hard to understand) instead of using more complex strategies (e.g. choosing between main and trivial information). The present…

Reading skill plays a pivotal role in the process of acquiring information. An appropriate teaching technique should be implemented in order to improve the students' reading skill. This research aimed at revealing whether or not: (1) Herringbone technique (HT) is more effective than Tri Focus Steve Snyder technique (TFSST) to teach reading…

This study investigated the complexity of leveled passages used in four classroom reading assessments. A total of 167 passages leveled for Grades 1-6 from these assessments were analyzed using four analytical tools of text complexity. More traditional, two-factor measures of text complexity found a general trend of fairly consistent across-grade…

Teaching students to enjoy reading is important in middle level education; however, middle school students with emotional behavioral disabilities (EBD) frequently struggle with reading skills and frequently display motivational deficits during reading instruction. The purpose of this study was to examine if the presence/absence of a classroom pet…

Background: Readability tests are indicators that measure how easy a document can be read and understood. Simple, but very often ignored, readability statistics cannot only provide information about the level of difficulty of the readability of particular documents but also can increase an evaluator's credibility. Purpose: The purpose of this…

Developing reading skills in a second language presents learners with many challenges, including lexico-grammatical decoding. An additional challenge is posed by the different registers of written text and the associated lexico-grammatical features with which learners must contend. Questioning the efficacy of using non-academic reading texts in…

This case study of the Therapeutic Community Program at Montana Women's Prison investigates the relationship between inmate reading levels and the self-help materials used for rehabilitative purposes within prison settings. The Therapeutic Community Handbook, published by the Montana Department of Corrections, is used as the primary method of…

Concludes that test results are essentially the same for both the Flesch and Gunning reading indices. (RB)

A study was conducted to determine the SMOG readability formula scores of currently available patient education materials. It was hypothesized that the reading level of the materials would be higher than 7.5, the reading level of the average American citizen; and that there would be a significant reduction in the measured document reading levels…

For its 53rd annual meeting, the Association of Educators and Researchers met in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Marriott Charlotte City Center. This year's conference theme was "Building Literacy Communities", which was also used as the title for this year's Yearbook, Volume 32. This organization has long been the home of some of the nation's…

A study was undertaken to determine the operational reading levels and skills of beginning office employees and to compare the readability of classroom and on-the-job materials. Clerks and secretaries who had been employed for two years or less were observed and interviewed to collect the data. Statistical analysis revealed that secretaries read…

Because of concern about the harmful effects of placing children in low reading groups, this study tested the following "sacred cows" in reading: (1) the use of informal reading inventories for grouping children in reading instruction, (2) the homogeneous grouping practices currently utilized in most classrooms in the United States, (3)…

This article discusses Japanese students' difficulties in reading English, overviews some of the problems of college English textbooks, presents the results of research on the subject, and discusses characteristics of measures of readability. Teaching methods that have proven effective with Japanese students and activities for engaging students in…