Students will respond better to grammar instruction if the traditional heavy handbooks are replaced with light-weight paperbacks, each full of practical suggestions and clear examples. Several inexpensive paperbacks are available for instruction in grammar and usage, spelling, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing. Unlike the conventional…

To test the assumption that conventional textbook prose contains words and word sequences unnecessary for comprehension, 210 blind children, all braille readers in grades 6, 7, 8, and 9, were divided into three groups and tested on a fictional story written in one of three different forms. Those forms included a traditional style (1620 words), a…

This exploratory multivariable comparison of an augmented structural (Stern and Gould) and an enriched basal (Winston) program was conducted with two matched classes of low to average ability disadvantaged children in grades 1 and 2. At the end of grade 1 the basal class rated significantly superior on the Gates-MacGinitie Comprehension Test and…

The Oakland County, Michigan, first-grade study of the effectiveness of three approaches to beginning reading was extended to the second and third grades to investigate differences in their effects on reading and related language development. Each of 11 research teams chose three classrooms which used either the Initial Teaching Alphabet approach…

The practice of teaching reading should be based on the nature and dignity of human beings. The major problem in the study of reading is that the reading model on which pedagogy is based is inconsistent with this view of persons. The view that reading is a skills-determined, linear process in which readers decode, process, and retrieve information…

As part of a two-year project that examined the processes by which children initially approach the reading task, a study was devised to test the project's materials and procedures. Selected by a pretest, four kindergarten children, with no prior reading instruction, were taught the same reading content using the initial teaching alphabet for a…

Noting that a study of semantics can inform teachers' understanding of the reading process, this paper describes seven basic types of meaning, illustrates how the interrelatedness of meanings within a semantic field may be shown, and discusses children's acquisition of semantic fields. It cites research into the development of semantic fields in…

To teach language processing is to teach students how to clarify information in material they are reading or discussing so that they are able to understand, evaluate, learn, store, recall, and use it. The first section of this guide, which is based on the use of the Formula Phonics method, discusses the teaching of language processing in terms of…

The studies reported in this document reflect the interests and concerns of reading and language arts teachers. Topics of the 10 studies were: a comparison of basal and individualized reading approaches to vocabulary acquisition of fourth graders, a comparison of a formal reading program and an informal general readiness program in kindergarten,…

This kit for teachers is designed to help students at the elementary and secondary levels improve their reading skills. The kit is divided into twelve sections. The first section describes in detail how to best put the materials found in this aid to use. Sections two through six are devoted to the word-recognition techniques of sight word…

The major purpose of this investigation was to determine the relative efficacy of two methods of teaching reading in a college learning-improvement project. Seventy students from undergraduate psychology classes were divided into two instructional groups and one control group. It was hypothesized that subjects receiving modified paperback scanning…

Group and individual informal reading inventories have brought about considerable improvement over standardized reading tests in the placement of students at their proper reading levels. Parents and school administrators want more individualization, however, so a comparatively effective, but quicker, test is needed. A combination of "cloze"…

This study investigated the efficacy of the language experience approach (LEA) with native Indian remedial reading students at the junior high level in British Columbia. Gains of vocabulary and comprehension achievement, of attitude toward reading, and of writing achievement were compared between the language experience approach and typical…

Ideas to be understood and to be remembered must be organized. To organize ideas the reader must recognize the relationship of the parts of the ideas, to one another and to the whole. The reader with no orderly set of the ideas presented on the printed page cannot carry on a dialogue with the author and profit from the reading experience. What did…

A four-week course in reading comprehension which attempts to provide students with a repertoire of techniques to use when they encounter difficult reading passages is described in this paper. At the end of the course, students must demonstrate their ability to skim a short reading passage and write a one-sentence summary of its central theme and…