Performance of 36 second graders in judging grammaticality was not associated with reading ability or metaphonological skill, while performance in correcting violations of grammaticality was strongly associated. Short-term memory had minimal effects on judgment performance, but greatly affected correction performance. Both judgment and correction…

Examines and evaluates microcomputer software designed to assist in diagnosing students' reading abilities and making instructional decisions. Claims that existing software shows valuable potential when used sensibly and critically by trained reading clinicians. (MM)

Examines the effects of prior knowledge and oral reading accuracy on miscues and comprehension of third-grade average readers who read expository passages orally. Finds that children with high prior knowledge made fewer miscues which resulted in meaning loss, and that their miscues were graphically less similar to the text word. (MM)

Explains how a comparison portfolio can illustrate a student's progress by contrasting performances from the beginning and end of the school year. Notes that the portfolio should include standardized test scores, informal assessments, student writing samples, voluntary reading program reports, self assessments, and samples of class reading…

Examines syntactic, semantic and grapho-phonic miscues made by early readers of varying ability. Finds that (1) passage complexity affects use of syntactic and semantic cues; (2) high and above average students' miscue quality deteriorates as text complexity increases; and (3) higher word recognition scores relate to effective use of grapho-phonic…

Examination of the relationship between educational attainment and long-lasting, bilateral otitis media with effusion (OME) in 270 Dutch children (ages 2 to 4) found that, at age 7, early bilateral OME affected spelling ability but not reading ability. Effects of treatment with ventilation tubes were not found. (DB)

Investigates the relationship between cognitive abilities at age four and reading at age seven. Shows that reading ability was positively correlated with knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondence, visual memory, auditory sequential memory, and Draw-a-Man scores (intelligence). Suggests that cognitive deficits predate reading problems. (PA)

Print material at an advanced reading level was revised for low literate individuals and given to a treatment group randomly chosen from 295 participants. Revisions had an insignificant effect on knowledge. It was recommended that materials for low-literate audiences be developed from scratch and not revised from existing material. (SK)

Reading-disabled and nondisabled 8-10 year olds and 14-16 year olds indicated instances of recurrence in lists of words and pseudowords that contained repeats, rhymes, near rhymes, and semantically related pairs. Poor readers relied on semantic connections and good readers relied on phonological connections. (ME)

Investigates the effects of text absent and text present conditions during summary writing. Suggests that text absent summarization may be beneficial but only for subjects who are competent summary writers or able readers. (SR)

This article presents evidence that initial and advanced reading abilities are predominantly mediated by the right and left cerebral hemispheres, respectively. Premature reliance on left hemisphere reading strategies or later failure to shift from earlier right hemisphere strategies are hypothesized as resulting in two different types of dyslexic…

Finds that differences in parent and teacher ratings of low ability readers were more pronounced than the differences for high ability readers. Shows that parents of low readers viewed their children as more adaptable, approachable, and persistent than their teachers, whereas both parents and teachers viewed low readers as distractible. (SR)

Compared to controls, adults (n=102) who reported a history of difficulties in learning to read were disabled in phonological coding, but less disabled in reading comprehension. Adults with poor phonological coding skills had basic deficits in phonological representations of spoken words, even when semantic word knowledge, phonemic awareness,…

Investigated relationships among complex memory span, simple memory span, and phonological awareness tasks and their predictive importance for reading accuracy, reading comprehension, and arithmetic ability. Eleven tests were administered in three sessions to seven-year olds. Results suggested that phonological awareness and complex span tasks…

Examined the phonological analysis and verbal working memory components of the sound categorization task and their relationships to reading skill differences. Children were tested on sound categorization by having them identify odd words in sequences. Sound categorization performance was sensitive to individual differences in speech perception…