Part of the Grade Teacher special report, "Linguistics and the Language Arts

The easiest way for a content area teacher to find how effectively students can read materials assigned in class is to design a teacher-made inventory, using the materials to be read and studied by the students, called a Textbook Usage Inventory. Reading skills and resources that should be incorporated in the inventory include literal skills,…

A study investigated the reading comprehension of 34 college freshmen in relation to the presence of 20 syntactic elements of written language in their expository writing. Language samples included one silent reading comprehension test that identified "high" and "low" readers and two expository in-class themes, one developed…

A pilot study was designed to develop an instrument to examine students' self-perceptions regarding their own reading. An open survey was conducted in which 300 college students in a compensatory reading program listed those factors which might influence a person's reading ability. In all, 163 responses were listed, and these were reduced to 10…

A study examined the effects of prior knowledge and the explicitness of text connectivity on various measures of reading ability. Subjects were 130 eighth grade students who read 6 prose passages that had been manipulated for content familiarity and for use of explicit connectives and implied connectives (those brought about by the author's…

The Minnesota Reading Examination for College Students and the Minnesota Speed of Reading Test were administered to 865 University of Minnesota freshmen in 1978. When these test results were compared to the scores on the same tests that 1,313 freshmen and 4,191 high school seniors received in 1928, the 1978 students scored significantly lower than…

The second in a series concerning some implications of learners' cognitive style for the development of reading competence, this paper explores the relationships between cognitive style and reading achievement, with attention to such factors as the stability and flexibility of cognitive style functions. The paper discusses J. E. Hill's concept of…

A study was conducted to test the revisionist theory which holds that students are channeled into good or poor reading groups, depending on the socioeconomic status of their parents as perceived by the teacher. The theory also maintains that there is a detrimental lack of mobility between groups within a given class and from grade to grade. The…

The follow-up study of 47 learning disabled children (mean age 9 years when first interviewed) focused on current reading ability, school status, and involvement with the police. The Ss had all attended a clinic for 2 1-hour sessions weekly for periods of from 5 months to 2 years. The Ss also participated in therapy groups and crisis intervention.…

SIX FIFTH-GRADE SCIENCE UNITS ARE PRESENTED--SOUND AND LIGHT IN COMMUNICATION, LIVING THINGS, WEATHER, EARTH AND ITS RESOURCES, MOTION AND FOREIGN TRANSPORTATION, AND ELECTROMAGNETS. THE INTEREST LEVEL IS APPROPRIATE FOR FIFTH-GRADERS, BUT THREE READING ABILITY LEVELS, GRADES 1, 3, AND 5, ARE PROVIDED. THE TEACHER IS THUS ENABLED TO MOTIVATE…