The Maryland Accountability Testing Program Annual Report is a reference document on basic skills test data for the public, providing a survey of test results and the progress made by state students in grades 3, 5, and 8. Basic skills areas for these grade levels are covered, along with average grade equivalent scores. The California Achievement…

Concentrating on theoretical perspectives on reading, writing and language research, this yearbook contains 33 articles which cover the politics of literacy, emergent and early literacy, vocabulary, comprehension, content area reading, writing, and teacher effectiveness. Articles include: (1) "Tomorrow's Readers Today: Becoming a Profession of…

This reading manual is part of the package of materials developed for use in an English for Special Purposes project that offers classes in reading, grammar, and emergency care attendant training for limited English proficient students. An official course outline and course syllabus appear first. The eight lessons provided are designed to develop…

This reader contains stories to accompany the Reading Manual. It is part of the package of materials developed for use in an English for Special Purposes project, which offers classes in reading, grammar, and emergency care attendant training for limited English proficient students. These stories may be selected as supplementary reading for…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 35 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the relation of specific perceptual, cognitive, and training variables to reading skills acquisition of kindergarten students; (2) the implications of interest…

A guide for teachers selecting reading textbooks, this report brings together information about basal programs on the market and clarification of important issues in reading instruction. A general analysis of 20 basal programs includes a prose explication and a table comparing contents (skills), reading selections, methodology, assessment tests,…

Although the teaching of English at Junior Certificate level in Malawi secondary schools has only recently been introduced, some problems have been created by the introduction of the prescribed textbook, "A New Introduction to English Literature." This report opens with a critical review of the textbook, citing certain irrelevancies in…

Intended to help teachers assess the effectiveness of their reading program, this paper suggests how teachers can emphasize comprehension in reading, what behaviors students demonstrate related to getting and creating meaning when reading, and how the classroom environment can promote reading for meaning. After describing effective teacher and…

The guide contains detailed suggestions for teaching 10 books about Indians to older students who read easily and are ready to be introduced to serious literature. The books are When the Legends Die; Laughing Boy; Dancehall of the Dead; The Man Who Killed The Deer; Rolling Thunder; House Made of Dawn; Yes Is Better Than No; The Man To Send Rain…

A study compared the effects of two instructional strategies on ninth grade students' reading comprehension, retention, and attitude. Students in 15 ninth-grade classes were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: summary writing (SW), writing short answers to questions (QA), and rereading (RR), (control). The dependent measures were good…

Today, more than ever before, teachers are devoting much of their intellectual and emotional energy to helping students better understand the school texts that they are required to read. This can best be accomplished through six changes in the way reading comprehension is taught: (1) accept an active-constructive model of reading comprehension;…

Five experiments were carried out to gain insight into foreign language learning as it takes place in the classroom environment, and to create optimal learning conditions for beginning Swedish-speaking learners of English as a Foreign Language. The experiments examined receptive and productive comprehension of English vocabulary in…

A study investigated the inference strategies used by sixth grade students reading narratives, and the results were compared with the inference strategies identified as those used by skilled adult readers. Subjects, 80 sixth grade students from two Canadian urban centers were divided into two groups: 40 high-proficiency readers and 40…

Writing and reading can be viewed as processes in which meaning is gradually constructed, and this description extends to the visual arts as well. Certain process-oriented thinking skills are inherent in both, including comprehending and composing, regenerating ideas, the application of language learning and processing. Five characteristics of…

In order to investigate the text structure/reading comprehension relationship, this paper reviews recent research on text representation theories. Text structure investigation--research on semantic memory as it is concerned with meaning from the word level through the inference level--follows the premise that sentences are understood in the…