Research on the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) is viewed from two aspects--its limitations and how it can be improved. Thus far research has indicated that (1) transition from i.t.a. to traditional orthography is not the problem expected and (2) the children who are taught with i.t.a. read no better or worse than children taught with the…

Two studies were conducted to investigate the use of a technique for providing a grade-level interpretation for cloze readability scores. In the first study, Bormuth's cloze-test criteria were compared with the results of the Fry and Dale-Chall readability formulae. A total of 133 students in grades 4 to 8 were required to read a 250-word passage…

A questionnaire was constructed and evaluated by specialists in the field of reading instruction to gain information regarding the use of the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i/t/a). Elementary teachers and reading specialists in 16 randomly sampled school districts in nine states were questioned. Eight of the systems were in districts generally…

The transfer relationships between three tasks used in the Southwest Regional Laboratory's (SWRL) First-Year Communications Skills Program to help the child recognize the relationship between isolated letter sounds and the same sounds embedded in a word context were investigated. The three tasks were learning isolated letter sounds, learning…

Studies showing that even though certain factual questions are directly related to information in passages they are also easier to answer without reference to the passage are the basis for this study which attempted to define qualities of relationship which might be responsible for the ease of answerability. Three Tests of Acquisition of…

This is the first monograph in the PREP reading series which focus on reading difficulties and the cooperative efforts of various professionals to deal with the problems encountered. Each of the four of the series directs its message to a specific person on a school staff; each focuses on a different aspect of treating reading difficulty and…

A proposal that the normal reader does not pay attention to individual letters but to sets of features which are characteristic of a word as a whole is presented and tested in this investigation. It was hypothesized that the reader learns (1) to extract distinctive feature information simultaneously from several parts of the configuration and (2)…

Underlining as a study aid for college students has only recently been considered important in the hierarchy of study skills. A review of statements and studies concerning underlining leads off this study of the extent to which underlining was employed by college students in two education courses at Northern Illinois University and the…

Vocabulary studies conducted in this century are reviewed in this paper, with an emphasis on several recent investigations utilizing computer technology. The use of computers has greatly facilitated the ease and accuracy of word tabulation, but the lists are only as language-reflective as the sources from which they are derived. The great majority…

A child faced with an unknown word in oral reading or oral language has available a number of potential cues, including syntactic and semantic features. His errors may reveal strategies based on the use of some but not all cues. In order to assess the similarity of responses to oral reading and oral language, 75 children in grades 1-3 were…

The relationship between the reflection-impulsivity dimension, a dimension of cognitive style, and selected aspects of oral reading behavior was investigated in this study. Fifteen impulsive and fifteen reflective average readers were selected from a population of 109 second graders. Measures of intelligence and reading comprehension were…

The use of the cloze procedure as a method of determining relative readability was first introduced by Wilson Taylor, who contended that the cloze procedure was a superior method of determining readability since it measured a facet of readability called concept load. Authorities have accepted cloze tests as valid and reliable instruments capable…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between students' ability to recover deep structures, as measured by the Sentence Comprehension Subtest (SCS) of the SRA Reading Index, and their reading comprehension as measured by the Reading Progress Scale (RPS). All 11th grade students in Hillsborough High School, Belle Mead, New…

This pamphlet deals with the principle of systematizing traditional orthography (TO) to produce initial teaching media and the application of that principle in Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.). Part 1 discusses: three causes of failure in literacy, the need for systematizing TO for the better learning of literacy, TO research with infants,…

Basic research in speech and the lateralization of language is shown to illuminate the problems of reading and some of its disabilities. First, it is pointed out how speech for the ear differs from reading, or language for the eye. Perceiving speech is easy because, as members of the human race, we all have access to a special physiological…