The movement for spelling reform supports the broadening of educational opportunity. Our spelling is outdated, inflated, inconsistent and often absurd. While a simplified spelling system won't eliminate all reading problems, it will make reading problems easier to isolate and diagnose. (MW)

The Cloze Procedure can be a useful instrument in matching student reading levels to appropriate reading selections. Additional research on ways to match students to readings at appropriate levels is needed. (Author/CJ)

Offers strategies by which teachers can accommodate individual differences in students' reading abilities by modifying students' experiential background, text content and mode of presentation, or assignments at three points in the reading process. (Author/SJL)

Examines the relationship between the Woodcock Word Comprehension Test and several measures of reading achievement and verbal intelligence on 194 children. Pearson product-moment correlations (r) were used to test the relationships. It appeared that the Woodcock Word Comprehension Test assesses reading ability more than general verbal ability.…

Study examined relationship between use of grammatical and rhetorical skills in writing and performance in reading for children in grades 1 through 3. Apparently certain linguistic skills are common to both disciplines and these skills become more critical to both writing and reading as the child matures. (DS)

Investigates increased use of metacognition (i.e., monitoring comprehension, developing expectations, learning information sampling strategies) as reading ability develops among sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade pupils and high school students. (Author/RH)

Two additional hypotheses were tested in a replication of a previous study that found two factors from the "Children's Personality Questionnaire" that discriminated between disabled and non-disabled readers. Notes the differences between this study's results and the original study's results. (RL)

Describes 2 points of view about the relationship between oral-language and literacy skills: The phonological sensitivity approach posits that vocabulary provides the basis for phonological sensitivity, which then is the key language ability supporting reading, and the comprehensive language approach posits that varied language skills interact…

Argues that achievement gains in literacy in the middle school classroom revolve around the three elements of "dialogic instruction" orchestrated to support "envisionment-building classrooms" centered around substantive and sustained "curricular conversations." Asserts that effective classroom practices that include…

Investigates the development of morphological awareness in Chinese and English. Indicates that morphological awareness develops with grade level and is strongly related to reading ability. Notes that Chinese students' acquisition of derivational morphology seems to lag behind that of compounding rules, which might reflect the nature of Chinese…

Examines the influence that oral language deficits exert on children's ability to learn to read and to develop reading skills. Discusses evidence that points to deficient phonological awareness as the variable that best discriminates children with reading delay. The effects of deficit phonological awareness are described. (Author/CR)

A study involving 147 Missouri school districts serving students with visual impairments found that 77% who were identified as print readers, Braille readers, or print and Braille readers were reading at or above grade level. Of the 127 who were Braille readers, 57 were reported to perform grade-level activities. (Contains 4 references.) (CR)

This article discusses the role of phonological and morphological processing in learning to read and spell. Studies on the effect of morphological processing on reading and spelling are outlined. It is suggested that the trend is toward a cross-linguistic framework and studies of psycholinguistic and neurocognitive levels of reading processes.…

A study involving 80 undergraduates with deafness enrolled in first-year algebra courses found students were more likely to miscomprehend a relational statement and commit a reversal error when the required arithmetic operation was inconsistent with the statement's relational term. Reading ability influenced performance, and errors decreased as…