This summary of the history and current workings of the New York Citywide reading test program emphasizes the educational consequences of it. The testing program has become controversial since its inception as a political compromise for school district decentralization. It seems to have become overly influential because children are prepared for…

This paper discusses certain problems that can arise with respect to the selection of content in the preparation of a test to measure language proficiency for some specific purpose. Forty employees in a defense plant in Montreal, Canada were interviewed in order to specify language needs, to arrive at a precise interpretation of the required…

The relevance of psycholinguistic and educational research on passage structure and processing for the design of reading achievement tests is discussed. This research would provide a more objective basis for the writing of passages and items. Two aspects of content validity are distinguished and the relevance of psycholinguistic research to them…

Drawing from an overview of cloze research, this paper sets forth the thesis that the validity of the cloze technique and its usefulness as a measuring device have been clearly established, but its usefulness as a teaching device has not been so determined. Salient points of research are summarized as follows: (1) if rates of developing…

A study was conducted to compare two methodologies for establishing hierarchical relationships--the Dayton and Macready model and the White and Clark procedure--using criterion referenced test data. Several phonics and structural analysis skills were selected from a reading skills battery. The opinions of reading "experts" were solicited in order…

Reading tests can be a source of inquiry into the processes of reading, learning to read, and curricular implications. During a staff development program, teachers reviewed and analyzed various reading tests. They discovered that reading tests seem to be unequal in their concern for what is being measured; that very few tests offer explicit or…

PRESENTED IS AN EXPERIMENTAL OUTLINE OF A PROGRAM DESIGNED TO TEACH BASIC SKILLS NEEDED FOR WORD-RECOGNITION AND UNDERSTANDING, IN ADDITION TO OTHER ASPECTS OF TOTAL READING SKILL. PART I PRESENTS COMPONENTS OF SEQUENTIAL LEARNING IN READING SKILLS, CONSISTING OF WORD PERCEPTION, WORD IDENTIFICATION, WORD MEANING, COMPREHENSION, CRITICAL READING…

THIS SECOND ISSUE OF VOLUME 1 OF "THE OKLAHOMA READER" PRESENTS SIX ARTICLES IN AN EFFORT TO EXTEND THE WORK OF THE OKLAHOMA READING COUNCIL TO TEACHERS THROUGHOUT THE STATE. THE ARTICLES CONCERN PLANS FOR A REMEDIAL PROGRAM, THE ROLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN BASIC READERS, WORD ATTACK SKILLS, STRENGTHENING ATTENTION SPAN, CRITICAL READING, USE OF…

EFFORTS WERE MADE IN THIS STUDY TO (1) RELATE THE AMOUNT OF SILENT SPEECH DURING SILENT READING TO LEVEL OF READING PROFICIENCY, INTELLIGENCE, AGE, AND GRADE PLACEMENT OF SUBJECTS, AND (2) DETERMINE WHETHER THE AMOUNT OF SILENT SPEECH DURING SILENT READING IS AFFECTED BY THE LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY OF PROSE READ AND BY THE READING OF A FOREIGN…

After reviewing the information that teachers and other decision makers need to have about student achievement and some recent advances in the theory and practice of reading assessment, the author makes a number of recommendations for improving assessment programs. These include: do less massive, broad-band testing, but improve the reliability and…

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY DEVELOPED A CRITICAL READING TEST AS PART OF THE 3-YEAR USOE PROJECT 2612 CONDUCTED TO DETERMINE WHETHER CRITICAL READING COULD BE TAUGHT TO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN. THE TEST AIMS TO MEASURE THE ANALYTIC AND EVALUATIVE ABILITIES OF CHILDREN IN REACTING CRITICALLY TO MATERIALS READ. CRITICAL READING SKILLS WERE…

TESTS SHOULD BE CAREFULLY EXAMINED IF TEACHING OBJECTIVES ARE TO MATCH TEST OBJECTIVES. TEACHERS SHOULD BECOME MORE PROFICIENT IN THE BROADER ASPECTS OF EVALUATING READING PERFORMANCE AND SHOULD EMPLOY A WIDER VARIETY OF EVALUATION TECHNIQUES. THE USE OF STANDARDIZED READING TESTS AS INDICATORS OF INSTRUCTIONAL READING LEVEL SHOULD BE ABANDONED.…

This monograph includes an extensive review and evaluation of the research literature and offers teachers and clinicians background for understanding reading diagnosis, the correlates and causes of reading disabilities, diagnostic techniques, and remediation. The following topics are discussed: (1) the nature and levels of diagnosis, (2) the…

The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of ninth-grade slow readers with ninth-grade good readers and with sixth grade readers on a test of syntactic comprehension. The significant difference between the ninth-grade good readers' and the ninth-grade slow readers' performance on A Test of Sentence Meaning (ATSM), developed by…

The problem investigated in this study was to determine the best combination of tests or subtests in a research battery which, when administered to beginning first-grade students, would enable the most efficient prediction of reading achievement. A total of 1052 children were randomly selected from first-grade classrooms within the State of…