Theoretical models of the reading process have been proposed by F. Smith, E. J. Gibson and H. Levin, and D. LaBerge and S. J. Samuels. These models were examined using the following questions: How are features of print processed by the brain? How important are prior knowledge and expectations to the process (top-down or bottom-up processing)? Is…

A PROJECT INVOLVING STORING AND SEARCHING READING RESEARCH BY COMPUTER WAS CONDUCTED (1) TO IDENTIFY, COLLECT, AND ORGANIZE A BASIC CORPUS OF RESEARCH DOCUMENTS FROM THE PUBLISHED RESEARCH LITERATURE ON READING, (2) TO PRODUCE A MASTER FILE MAGNETIC TAPE CONSISTING OF CITATIONS AND ANNOTATIONS FOR COMPUTER STORAGE AND MANIPULATION, (3) TO DESCRIBE…

This booklet was designed to provide easy access to reading information generated by the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), the Clearinghouse on Retrieval of Information and Evaluation on Reading (ERIC/CRIER), and the International Reading Association (IRA). The purposes, organization, services, and products of ERIC, ERIC/CRIER, and…

The two reported studies examined children's approaches to and success in conceptualizing a literal main idea in reading. The first study examined elementary pupils' ability to formulate a main idea for brief, carefully controlled paragraphs written with one specific but unstated main idea. The study revealed that although subjects' grade…

The relationships between reading interest and reading comprehension were studied through the performances of 578 sixth-grade students divided into seven ability groups. Each group was required to read material with readability scores two grades higher than the group's mean reading ability. They rated the selections according to degrees of…

This study determined readability levels of 149 selected free or inexpensive career-education publications from a list in the "Educator's Index of Free Materials." Analyses based on the Dale-Chall readability formula indicated that the majority of the materials were written at the college level. An extensive appendix summarizes the content and…

A notation system for the representation of interacting plans of action is presented in this paper and applied in the analysis of a portion of "Hansel and Gretel." The notation system explicates interactions among plans: how cooperation takes place, how conflicts arise and are resolved, how beliefs about plans determine actions, and how…

Rigorously articulated conversational studies (based on George Kelly's personal construct theory) of the reading of complete texts raise new questions about the cognitive processes by which meaning is attributed to the printed word. Four generative models are examined: probabilistic, phrase structure, transformational, and semantic. No single…

This study explored the effects of different sentence conditions upon reading comprehension as evidenced by reading rate and recall taken at various times. Thirty-two subjects from a California high school representing four sex-by-ability groups, read experimental material on a table-top programmer while being timed. Recall responses were recorded…

The Inventory of Teacher Knowledge of Reading was administered to a sample of 60 freshmen, 60 juniors, and 60 seniors in elementary education at the University of Illinois. In addition, it was administered to 60 experienced teachers who had not attended the University of Illinois as undergraduates. An analysis of variance of the test scores was…

This paper argues that the first step in research aimed at identifying what constitutes the effective reading teacher should be the establishment of criteria which deals with effectiveness. A conceptual model is presented which could be used to identify the effective teacher. The focal point of the model is that effective reading instruction…

A sample of 79 first grade children, selected from a total sample of 350 subjects from an upper middle class school district, were involved in this study. The sample population was divided into three reading groups (depending on their reading scores) to permit statistical comparisons among groups with differentiated reading achievements. A battery…

This study consisted of two experiments. In the first experiment, 40 college students gave frequency ratings for concrete and abstract words which were equated on normative frequency. From the results it was concluded that abstract (low imagery) words, even though the two sets of words are of equal frequency. In the second experiment, different…

Seven experiments were run to determine the precise nature of some of the variables which affect the processing of short-term visual information. In particular, retinal location, report order, processing order, lateral masking, and redundancy were studied along with the nature of the confusion errors which are made in the full report procedure.…

This study deals with the ability of the beginning reader to recognize the relationships between isolated letter sounds and the same sounds embedded in a word context. The subjects were 64 prekindergarten children attending six private preschools in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The subjects were all Caucasian and spoke a standard English…