A three-year study was conducted at a California junior college to determine the number of college freshmen who needed assistance/counseling in reading achievement. In the first phase of the study (1974-1975), all entering freshmen were administered the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, Form C. The same instrument was used during the second phase of the…

To determine whether students gain more knowledge and stronger impressions from reading a play or from viewing the play on videotape, two groups of college students were presented with an excerpt from Arthur Miller's "Incident at Vichy." One group was to read the excerpt and the other group was to view the same excerpt from a public…

Two experiments examined the effects of definition and synonym as context clues embedded in three types of text (fiction, exposition, and science). It was predicted that (1) type of text would influence clue usage; (2) difficulty of the text, based on increasingly more detailed complex information, would interfere with the use of clues; (3) clue…

In learning to read a nonnative language, the learner's ability to achieve meaning is hampered if adequate preparation or readiness for reading is neglected. A review of the literature pertaining to second language learning and reading in a second language has identified five principles that appear to be significant in providing effective reading…

The many studies comparing good and poor readers have yielded few conclusive findings as a result of a number of problems. The first set of problems has to do with the choice of tests or tasks. There are many differences in the cognitive demands of reading and listening tasks children encounter in school. In listening, prosodic cues facilitate…

Many teachers not trained in English as a second language (ESL) often feel at a disadvantage when they are working with children whose first language is not English. This book addresses this disadvantage by giving practical information and teaching aids. The first area investigated is registration. Questions are suggested and the use to which…

In a field as varied and as technical as the classical languages, the professional training of the teacher is of paramount importance. An undergraduate major and graduate school work in the field of classical languages give a general view of the field and show which writings are interesting or important and how difficult they are. A graduate…

Recent brain research demonstrates that the left hemisphere of the brain processes information in a linear, organized way. The right hemisphere processes the same information as a whole, with a focus on nonverbal, spatial components. Current educational practice is inordinately skewed to develop only the left hemisphere of the brain. Data from…

In presenting a historical overview of trends in vocabulary research, this paper emphasizes the importance of word knowledge as a critical component in reading comprehension. It describes research examining current psychological and pedagogical models as they relate to vocabulary knowledge, and explores vocabulary research in the area of specific…

One hundred sixty college students were randomly assigned to eight groups defined by the possible combinations of teacher vagueness in instruction (vagueness v. no vagueness), teacher mazes conditions (mazes are defined as false starts or halts in speech, redundancy, and semantically nonsensical word combinations), and additional unexplained…

Seventy preschoolers, first, and third graders (average ages of 4 1/2, 6 1/2 and 8 1/2 years, respectively) participated in interviews which used stories and pictures to assess their perceptions of the sources of self-knowledge (self-observation, social feedback, and social comparison). Assessments were made of level of role-taking and salience,…

The resource guide provides migrant educators with activities to implement the National Migrant Education Oral Language Skills List, serving as both a starting point for developing oral language and as a model for the kinds of activities compatible with the stated purpose and rationale used to develop the Skills List. All listening and speaking…

The concept that it is important for students to learn how to read the language of mathematics is promoted. Most mathematics teachers neither have the knowledge nor feel the responsibility to develop reading skills in their students. The materials in this document are viewed to be of sufficient variety and potential for making important…

This paper brings to first fruition an analytic schema based on four elements which involve a conception of skills independent or particular testing devices: (1) the development and application of a class of statistical models incorporating qualitative definitions of skill, distorted in item response by errors conceived as misclassifications; (2)…

This research is a practical investigation of the effectiveness of the methods and modes which have been used to increase the listening comprehension skills of Chinese speakers learning English as a second language (ESL). A twelve-minute videotape, "Hawaii, Chinese Style," was chosen for the experiment because the language was authentic…