Fifteen children's picture books from each of three time periods--1960, 1964, and 1968--were rated using the Rokeach Value Survey in order to identify the value systems expressed in their contents and to compare these systems with those held by adults. Results indicated that the instrumental values ranked highest were loving, imagination,…

A dynamic model of reading that represents the processes of gaining idiosyncratic integrated meaning from the silent reading of continuous textual discourse has been developed. It includes the roles of the affective interactions as well as the cognitive connections and integrations energized during the silent reading of a continuous text. The…

The three articles in this newsletter focus on ideas, programs, activities, and research concerned with reading in the content areas. The individual articles contain a discussion of the general approaches that characterize many successful content area reading programs, suggestions for educators who are considering establishing such programs in…

Three problems in the use of eye movement data for the study of language processing are discussed in this report: the perceptual span problem, the data summary problem, and the eye-mind lag problem. Recent research on perception during reading that bears on these problems is also described. Finally, a general approach to the use of eye movement…

This paper analyzes the order in which subject, verb, and quote come in sentences in the children's stories about Babar by Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff. It suggests that different constructions have different functions that are exploited by the author for communicative purposes. The paper adds that the order in which these elements appear affects…

This review of research involving children's moral judgment of literature indicates that such research has been plagued by serious methodological problems stemming largely from the fact that the stimulus materials used to assess children's comprehension and evaluations have tended to be poorly constructed. It contends that this forces children to…

A discriminant analysis of the relationships between 335 Florida students' first and second grade scores on the reading subtests of the Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT) and their third grade scores on the Florida Statewide Assessment Test (FSAT) was undertaken, using race, sex, and intelligence as independent variables. Three null hypotheses…

SOME EXPERIMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES CONDUCTED DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY UTILIZING PHONETIC ALPHABETS AS TRANSITIONAL MEDIA FOR INITIAL READING INSTRUCTION WERE SURVEYED TO PROVIDE A HISTORY OF THIS ASPECT OF EDUCATION. THE ACTUAL CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING EACH OF THE MAJOR USES OF SUCH TRANSITIONAL MEDIA ARE CONSIDERED IN DETAIL. THE…

Motivational aspects of the content of first-grade reading textbooks used in the United States and in several foreign countries, as well as textbooks formerly used in the United States, were explored, using both sociocultural and personality development dimensions in the analyses. Exploration of the nature of reading textbook content and its…

A study was conducted to determine which subtests of the Gates Reading Readiness Tests have greatest predictive efficiency. An experiment to assess the effect of training in reading readiness on 222 kindergarten children (107 girls and 115 boys) provided the data for the research. The experimental group received 2 months' reading readiness…

This study examined the relationship between students' reading achievement and their achievement in other school subjects one year after graduating from a diagnostic and remedial reading program. Gain scores indicated by pretesting and posttesting with the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills were compared with the difference between grades in other…

The present series of experiments was designed to examine the factors affecting the ability of people to draw inferences from a passage of text. It was found that, using a true-false recognition test, proportion correct was higher and reaction time shorter on inferred information than on information that was actually presented. This was the case…

The effect on comprehension of words containing more than one meaning was studied. In experiment one, subjects in grades four, five, and six were assessed on their ability to recall polysemous words and identify their meanings after having read them in sentence contexts. When words were assigned their primary sense in the sentences, subjects…

The domain-referenced approach to assessment results in a set of tests that are closely linked to theoretical propositions about aspects of reading comprehension. In this paper, the definition, validation, and use of domains are described, and one strategy for developing domain-referenced measures is proposed. The strategy involves identifying a…

Ethics in education is a neglected area, yet everything that is good in education springs from ethics while everything that is bad reflects the lack of them. When confronted with ethical questions concerning their administrators, colleagues, or students, educators often adopt the stance that "it is never too wise to be too honest."…