A three-part study examining the efficacy of a reading recovery program for learning disabled first grade students is described in this paper. An introduction outlines the Ohio Reading Recovery project and explains the purpose of the study. Part 1 describes the first phase of the study, in which 110 poor readers, including 35 learning disabled…

A pilot tutor training project, the Student-Tutor Orientation (STO), was designed to meet the need for making whole-language concepts of reading and writing instruction accessible to tutors as well as students through hands-on experience and for establishing a collaborative tutoring relationship in which students share in decision making.…

A practicum was conducted to improve reading comprehension in classroom performance with the basal reading series and on norm-referenced tests. Subjects included a fifth-grade class of 28 students who were paired with another fifth-grade class as peer teachers. New skills were taught and practiced with the target population early in the week. On…

This paper describes a practicum in which a comprehensive daily writing program was implemented to determine the effectiveness of the writing process in improving the self-esteem as well as the reading skills of first-grade students. The target group was 11 first graders who, out of a class of 25 students, had failed the comprehension part of the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which problem analysis facilitated the subsequent processing of expository text, both for novices and a comparison group. A text on osmosis consisted of six-pages and was used as reading material. The ninth-grade students were considered novices because they were unfamiliar with the…

The reliability, sensitivity, and criterion-related validity of concept comparison (CC) ratings and computer-derived multidimensional scaling (MDS) maps were studied as ways of assessing reading comprehension. Fifteen experts (2 district coordinators and 13 reading specialists/special education teachers) were included in this study. Reliability…

A mapping strategy for improving critical thinking about expository text was employed in a study designed to help six high school students with difficulties in reading comprehension. Subjects were four sophomores in a remedial reading program and two juniors in a special education program for the mildly retarded. Subjects read passages from an…

The construction of objective tests for native language reading comprehension is described. The tests were designed for the early secondary school years in several kinds of schools, vocational and non-vocational. The description focuses on the use of the Rasch model in test development, to develop a large pool of homogenous items and establish…

Four six-year-olds and their mothers were observed during the summer prior to starting first grade in a study designed to expand knowledge of the nature of verbal interactions during book reading. All of the children had some knowledge of letters and were making satisfactory progress in reading. The seven or eight observation sessions were taped…

A study tested hypotheses concerning thinking in a foreign language. Specifically, it looked at whether (1) inferencing in a foreign language relies on mental models and propositional thinking; (2) the three stages of the theory of comprehension apply to understanding foreign-language discourse; and (3) propositional thinking manifests native…

Research and observation have indicated that there is a connection between reading and writing. This connection has been confirmed through the research of D. Graves, L. Calkins, G. Bissex, and M. Baghban. Cognitive theorists believe that reading and writing involve similar schema or structures. Much of the pedagogy and research suggest that the…

A compendium of reading instructional practices from approximately 1950 through 1970, this compilation of essays supplies a theoretical background of the reading discipline for elementary and secondary school reading instructors. The five articles deal with different aspects of the reading curriculum. "The Basics in the Reading Curriculum"…

Commercially developed basal reading programs are used in most elementary school classrooms in the United States. Yet often neither the publishers developing these programs nor the members of textbook adoption committees selecting programs are able to take advantage of the best available knowledge about the reading process and reading instruction.…

A study was conducted to investigate ways in which reading comprehension could be instructionally influenced and whether that influence differentially affected young and elderly adult learners. The study attempted, too, to determine whether advance organizers--instructional aids designed to precede a main passage and to provide an organizational…

Focusing on the importance of the search for meaning in reading, the essays in this book address critical reading and the confusion about the place of skill development in the search for meaning. The following works are included: "Introduction to the 50th Yearbook" (M. P. Douglass); "The Quest for Meaning" (M. Poplin);…