A major concern for those in higher education is whether the instruments they use for screening students are valid and predictive. Of particular interest is whether a grammar test, used in many institutions to screen students for developmental English, and a reading comprehension test, used to screen students for developmental reading, truly…

This monograph is one in a series of semiannual reports on research related to reading in secondary schools. The six papers in the monograph deal with the following topics: (1) the effect of reading level on the retention of propositions by secondary school remedial reading students; (2) the ambiguity of the term "significance" in research, which…

Two text-based prose grammars, the W. Kintsch and B. J. F. Meyer models, were compared as to their sensitivity to potential developmental differences in children's recall of prose. Participants in the study were 212 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students who had been classified as average or below average in reading ability. The Meyer analysis…

Using Jean Piaget's theory of thinking as a structuring mechanism, this paper presents a theoretical framework for the development of remedial, corrective, and developmental reading programs geared toward teaching reading comprehension. The four stages of intellectual development that Piaget has proposed (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete…

The third-party evaluation of the second year of the Iowa Central Community College Experience Based Career Education (EBCE) Project was based on examination of project records, interviews with project staff, student and resource persons, questionnaires completed by students, parents and resource persons, and test data collected on students at the…

This paper reviews some of the strategies the receiver uses in the process of comprehending a message in a foreign language and discusses some of the ways in which the listener/reader goes beyond the actual physical form of the message during this process. The role of guessing is discussed in the context of the following theories: the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 11 titles deal with the following topics: models for reading instruction for disabled readers based on humanistic education principles; the effects of levels and positions of questions on the comprehension and reading time of…

Results of a survey using a criterion referenced test of reading comprehension for a large sample of sixth and eleventh grade students throughout Texas are reported in detail. Details of the sampling design and of the test development are reported elsewhere. Results are reported in terms of the percent of students correctly answering three out of…

A Spanish language workbook built around the theme of living together is presented here. It contains two units, "Companerismo" and "Cualidades humanizantes," and a total of five lessons. Lessons one and two of Unit One, "Ayudemonos" and "Mi amigo, mi hermano" present a passage for reading comprehension, various types of comprehension exercises…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles deal with the following topics: remedial reading teacher attitudes, how parent training in behavior modification and transactional analysis affects remedial reading instruction, the effect of role change on the reading…

The technology of transforming sentences from prose instruction into test questions was examined by comparing two methods of selecting sentences (keyword vs. rare singleton), two types of question words (nouns vs. adjectives), and two foil construction methods (writer's choice vs. algorithmic). Four item writers created items using each…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 11 titles deal with the following topics: a mature reader's use of consciously employed strategies to facilitate comprehension; contextual and acontextual approaches to teaching vocabulary to adult students; methods for teaching…

In view of the inadequate beginning reading achievement of many minority students, specific pedagogical factors that may enhance the classroom teacher's ability to help such children learn to read have been identified. Educational research suggests that the teacher is a major variable in the degree of success of the reading program. Teacher…

In 1978 the New York State Board of Regents initiated action to establish statewide high school graduation standards for reading comprehension. The process began by measuring the readability levels of materials used in core courses and materials that adults normally read (newspapers, news magazines, and feature magazines). To do this,…

This is the first of four volumes devoted to reading instruction, in a series of materials for teaching English as a second language to adult nursing aide students. The two units included deal principally with survival skills. The first unit is an introduction to Mahimahi Island, the imaginary quasi-Hawaiian locale used throughout the series. The…