The purpose of this study was to determine if verbalizing while attempting to seek the solution to a typical reading comprehension question would enhance pupil performance on a standardized measure of reading comprehension. Sixty-one seventh graders from an urban public school were selected as subjects; fifty-one were randomly assigned to eight…

Teachers of literature do not merely guide students; they also serve as critics. Teachers should remember that their classroom role as literary critics is to serve the needs of students who may not become future scholars of literature. Consequently, in deciphering the complexities of literature, teachers must focus on what the students need in…

A remedial program was developed at Nashville State Technical Institute to provide individualized instruction in mathematics, English, and reading. Students scoring less than a composite 50 percent on the five sections of a developed diagnostic reading test were assigned to the remedial reading program. The IBM Model 30 Computer was used to assign…

In an evaluation of the Reading Efficiency course at Windermere Secondary School, the experimental group made greater gains (statistically significant at the .01 level) in the Reading Rate subtest of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test than did the control group. The experimental group also made greater gains than the control group in reading rate on…

The effects of individually prescribed instruction (IPI) in reading as compared to the traditional mode of instruction are examined. The IPI model includes four components: analysis of subject matter content, diagnosis of student preinstructional behavior, sequencing of materials to facilitate learning, and evaluation strategies. Elementary…

Five modes and strategies for improving cognition in reading are discussed. As defined by the author, cignition concerns recognition of knowledge and development of intellectual skills and abilities. The five points discussed are: (1) cognitive skills can be arranged in a hierarchy; (2) to teach students at or near the apex of the hierarchy,…

Fourteen plays were designed to evaluate fourth grade children's abilities to respond to reading plays both with and without oral accompaniment. The study involved 378 children, representing a cross section of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, each of whom read half of each play silently and the other half while listening to a taped…

Three experiments conducted over a 2-year period with disadvantaged sixth graders are reported. In Experiment 1, the effectiveness of exposure to graded reading materials and audiovisual tutoring was tested in an automated reading program with specific behavioral objectives and a self-contained reward system. Twenty-one students formed three…

Literature in the area of measurement of comprehensibility is reviewed as it relates to the utilization of mathematical models for English. A number of mathematical language models are presented and explained, and evidence of their usefulness is given where available. In nonmathematical research, studies concerned with measurement of letter…

One-hundred and eight eleventh graders were assigned to three treatment groups: skimming/pretest, skimming/no-pretest, and no-skimming/pretest. Then the pretest groups responded to items in the pretest, while the no-pretest group responded to items unrelated to the stimulus passages. Four weeks later, the skimming groups were asked to skim the two…

In Piaget's dynamic conception of the child's cognitive growth, the transition from sensory-motor intelligence to the developmental stage of representational intelligence occurs during 5 to 7 years of age. The development proceeds from undifferentiation to differentiation, from unintentional to intentional, from unintelligent to intelligent, and…

Selected by the International Reading Association's Committee on Psycholinguistics and Reading, the papers in this volume were first presented at the 1968 IRA Preconvention Institute: (1) "Reading Is Only Incidentally Visual" (Kolers) suggests that the teaching of reading should move away from the purely visual; (2) "Some Thoughts on Spelling"…

This paper discusses two questions: How can newspapers be established as acceptable classroom reading materials in the secondary schools? and Why, until recently, have newspapers been so little used in the schools? Some of the answers provided to the first question are that the newspaper presents a viable means of keeping textbooks up-to-date in…

This self-study program for the high-school level contains lessons on: What to Look for in Narrative Writing, Interpreting Figurative Writing, Keeping Track of the Subject in Writing, and Reading Literature for Understanding. Each of the lessons concludes with a Mastery Test to be completed by the student. (DB)

The articles contained in this volume were selected to support and strengthen the concept of individualized instruction through diagnostic teaching. The book is divided into six major parts, each of which is preceded by a brief overview that emphasizes the main tenets advanced by the authors of the individual articles. The six major divisions of…