Standardized achievement tests may not be an accurate diagnostic tool for measuring individual pupil achievement in reading. Criterion-referenced tests, designed to measure specific goal mastery, can provide valuable information that standardized forms cannot. In addition, criterion-referenced tests give teachers the diagnostic tools needed to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate, with underprivileged first-grade children, the efficacy of the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) in teaching beginning reading and of the Peabody Language Development Kit (PLDK) in stimulating oral language and verbal intelligence. From 17 classes in nine schools, four groups, consisting of 100, 104,…

Five orders of approximation to normal English prose were constructed; 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, and 100th plus. Five cloze tests were then constructed by inserting blanks for deleted words in 5 word segments (5th order), 10 word segments (10th), 25 word segments (25th), 50 word segments (50th), and 100 word segments of five different passages of…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the relationship between reading ability and academic performance of junior college freshman and to what degree a measure of reading ability could predict academic performance. The 313 Pensacola Junior College freshman for whom 1970 Reading Index Scores on the Florida Twelfth Grade Test were…

Listening comprehension and reading comprehension editions of an experimental test were devised to provide equivalent measures from which raw scores would be directly comparable. The test was designed for a four-place multiple-choice category format. Forms A and B were administered on a rotation basis for the study. The testing population…

The independent reading behavior of 150 achieving fifth graders was investigated. Attention was directed toward the quality and variety of choice as well as to the number of books read. These variables were intercorrelated with standardized achievement tests, IQ, and a number of noncognitive and demographic variables. Indices of quantity, variety,…

Although it is frequently assumed that students who meet college entrance requirements have mastered basic reading skills, the presence of so many college reading and study skills centers argues that such is not the case. Many college students need help with some basic skills. To provide such help, careful diagnosis of individual abilities is…

The major focus of this abstract bibliography is to list research studies and journal articles reported in the ERIC/CRIER Basic References which identify and examine the many variables influencing reading comprehension. The entries in Part One, which includes citations and abstracts of documents published from 1950 to 1969, have been organized…

In order to determine whether the kind of process underlying cloze responses is indeed a systematic and exhaustive search, a study was conducted exploring some corollaries to such a search hypothesis. It was assumed that subjects would generate responses representing a number of word types, that some of these word types would be sensible and some…

Forty-two brain injured boys and 42 non brain injured boys (aged 11-6 to 12-6) were tested to determine the effects of increasing amounts of visual and auditory distraction on reading performance. The Stanford Achievement Reading Comprehension Test was administered with three degrees of distraction. The visual distraction consisted of either very…

To determine whether interrelationships existed among visual motor perception, linguistic skills, academic achievement, and the audiological status of deaf children, 199 subjects functioning from dull normal to superior in intelligence (aged 5.6 to 11) were studied. The results of the testing revealed that visual-motor-perceptual dysfunction is…

The Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) yields raw scores, standard scores, and percentile scores for reading skill, spelling skill, and arithmetic computational skill, and is applicable for determining student competence in these areas for pre-kindergarten through college level. Because national norms on the 1965 revised WRAT are not, however,…

The study determined the effects of using criterion referenced reading tests on children enrolled in migrant education programs. The main purpose was establishing educational continuity through interstate cooperation. The study involved migrant students in grades K-6 from Texas (a home base State) programs who arrived in the Indiana (a receiving…

This booklet is designed to provide guidelines for testing in reading and suggestions for using the test results in ways which will most benefit the student. Ten canons are presented which are intended to serve as guidelines for program-related assessment within a framework of instructional decision making. They are concerned primarily with the…

Designed to measure the effect of context on the ability of students to interpret structurally ambiguous sentences, this test consists of 20 items, ten of which are based on the surface structure ambiguities of the Sentence Interpretation Test (SIT). The criteria established for the construction of the Contextual Ambiguity Test (CAT) included item…