Including sections on research, programs, and professional problems and issues, this yearbook contains presentations given at the 1978 and 1979 meetings of the North Central Reading Association. Papers include: "The Effects of Anxiety on Reading Comprehension" (David Wark and others); "Some Effects of Anxiety on University Students" (J. Michael…

Same-year and same-grade comparisons were made of a matched sample of students who had been retained in kindergarten for a second year and who had been promoted after 1 year from kindergarten within the Pasco County (Florida) School System. Retained subjects (n=34) consisted of kindergarten students enrolled in the system's developmental…

A practicum was conducted to improve reading comprehension in classroom performance with the basal reading series and on norm-referenced tests. Subjects included a fifth-grade class of 28 students who were paired with another fifth-grade class as peer teachers. New skills were taught and practiced with the target population early in the week. On…

A compendium of reading instructional practices from approximately 1950 through 1970, this compilation of essays supplies a theoretical background of the reading discipline for elementary and secondary school reading instructors. The five articles deal with different aspects of the reading curriculum. "The Basics in the Reading Curriculum"…

The Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) exit level test was first administered to all eleventh grade students in October 1985. A make-up testing was conducted in January 1986. This report contains the results of the May 1986 retesting of approximately 3,200 11th-grade students who had previously failed to master either the…

The New York City Board of Education's Comprehensive Instructional Management Systems-Communication Arts (CIMS-CA) project is described in this report. The introductory section provides background information on the project (implemented in 1980), the primary goal of which was to develop a holistic communication arts curriculum for kindergarten…

A study was conducted to determine if there were significant differences in vision between beginning readers who learn to read easily and those who learn with difficulty (dyslexics). In addition, the study examined the mean of the high achievers (rather than expert opinion) to discover the degree to which visual efficiency was normally needed for…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 11 titles deal with the following topics: (1) teacher self-assessment and analysis of feedback to student miscues during oral reading; (2) the humor found in basal readers appropriate to second and fourth grade students; (3) an…

A review of the research on the effects of parental influence and parental involvement on children's reading achievement indicates that when parents take an active and positive part in their child's education the results often turn out well for the student. Parental influence is defined as any opinion, attitude, or action (other than direct…

Methods used to diagnose a seven-year old boy's reading problems illustrate the fact that reading assessments based upon a reader's strengths and a reader's understanding and control of the process will provide information which is more useful to teachers and parents than that provided by the numerical results of standardized tests. After Andrew,…

The proceedings of the fourth annual meeting of the College Reading Association (a fledgling organization in 1961 when this meeting was held) consisted of two symposia, a number of papers, and special reports on research related to reading, as follows: (1) "Opening Remarks" (Albert J. Mazurkiewicz); (2) "Improving Reading in the…

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the effects of two factors, the data base used for instructional decision making and the structure of instruction, on student achievement. The dependent data were the number of words read correctly by 117 elementary school students on three basal reading passages. Students were rank ordered in two ways:…

The Des Moines (Iowa) Independent Community School District Chapter I Reading Program served 1,850 students in grades 2-9. Chapter I students displayed gains between pre- and posttesting with the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Iowa Tests of Educational Development. The total population of Chapter I students who completed both a pre and posttest…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 26 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) individual differences in the use of comprehension strategies; (2) field dependence-independence and text comprehension; (3) automaticity of word…

This report focuses on the achievement in basic skill areas attained by participants in compensatory education activities in New York State, which has established the priority areas of reading and mathematics. Over 200,000 pupils participated in Chapter 1 reading programs, and over 86,000 participated in Chapter 1 mathematics programs. Ten tables…