Describes a reading battery that was assembled to advance study and definitions of reading maturity. Factor analysis shows the battery to have greater implicit construct similarity to a popular taxonomy and diagnostic system than conventional measures typically address. (FL)

An experimental instrument to assess reading performance on the Optacon (a machine converting words to tactile stimuli) was pilot tested with 12 visually handicapped Optacon readers (11 to 18 years old). Subtests measuring letter and word recognition and reading rate were satisfactorily reliable, but the subtest measuring literal comprehension was…

Identifies the types of questions in standardized reading tests to reveal whether the tests cover various comprehension skills and measure students' growth in higher skills from year to year. (AEA)

Reviews four standardized tests geared to helping development educators in placing students in courses and assessing their learning levels: the Davis Reading Test; the Descriptive Tests of Language Skills; the Descriptive Tests of Mathematics Skills; and the Nelson-Denny Reading Test. (CAM)

The stability of subskill scores on the Reading Comprehension Test of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills was studied. It was concluded that the subskills are of limited use in diagnosing specific strengths or weaknesses in a student's reading comprehension skill development. (Author/GK)

On all three tests, learning disabled children scored lower than control children. Also, the effect of removing dialect miscues as errors caused an overall increase in reading scores on all three tests. (Author/SB)

Five informal reading inventories and one standardized test containing graded reading passages were reviewed to determine their readability estimates. (HOD)

Proposes a research design for estimating for a given population the extent to which items with high context dependence (CD) measure a construct that is independent from that measured by items with low CD, shows how this design can be used empirically to compare the utility of alternate CD indices, and provides findings of two studies. (HOD)

Reports preliminary findings of a study (in progress) on the statistical and content validity of eight reading achievement tests. (JM)

The Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests-Revised were administered twice to 269 current drug abusers over an average time interval of 204.2 days. Overall, the study demonstrates that the two instruments have strong psychometric properties and that results from current drug abusers are reliable. (SLD)

Investigates dissociation between phonological and orthographic processes in reading with third graders. Finds that poor readers differed from skilled readers in how phonological and orthographic factors were balanced--relationship was strong among poor readers, low among skilled readers. Finds that phonological factors played a strong role…

In the approach to latent trait models for pure speed tests presented in this article, the subject parameters are treated as random variables with a common gamma distribution, and marginal maximum likelihood estimators are derived for the test difficulties and the parameters of the latent subject distribution. An application of this model to…

Studied the effects of items, passages, contents, themes, and types of passages on the reliability and standard errors of measurement for complex reading comprehension tests using seven different generalizability theory models. Results suggest that passages and themes should be taken into account when evaluating the reliability of test scores for…

Investigates the effects of a classroom reading program in which students who passed pretests on basal skills were excused from subsequent instruction and practice on those skills. Finds that most students were able to pass pretests on reading skills before the skills were covered in the basal reading program. (RS)