Although college teachers of English face a very real economic crisis, the current intellectual crisis is even more significant. The first failure of this intellectual crisis involves what we have done: we have replaced true scholarship with the new interpretation of texts, mistakenly believing that we need not know any outside knowledge of a…

This paper reviews recent theoretical developments and empirical findings in the area of the development of word knowledge in children. Advances in both linguistic and cognitive theory are described and synthesized, and children's word knowledge at various stages of development is outlined. The point is made that asking meaningful questions about…

Three studies were performed to test the feasibility of the PLATO Computer Assisted Instruction system for on-line testing of reading skills. In Study 1, three different approaches to vocabulary assessment were tested: self-screening, synonym, and word matching under brief exposure. One hundred ten subjects from a Chicago, Illinois, public…

Since not everything that is understood is remembered and not everything that is remembered is understood, models of language processing should be able to make a distinction between comprehension and memory. To this end, a case is made for a spreading activation process as being the essential ingredient of the comprehension process. Concepts…

This study looked at the period when language development overlaps the early years of reading, to see how children read and comprehend complex syntactic structures. Thirty-six second, third, and fourth graders, who were considered average readers, were tested in the first experiment using a reading test to determine comprehension of individual…

This study analyzes the quantity and quality of English used orally by 6-year-old Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservation Indian children. Interviews, conducted by American Indian teacher aides following a standardized interview guide, were recorded on cassette tapes. Random samples of the tapes were transcribed and analyzed for total utterances,…

Written responses to comprehension exercises related to basal reading materials were collected from 23 first graders and rated on a scale extending from no comprehension to application or extension of information beyond the story. Results indicated that most first graders in the group were able to answer detail questions but were unable to…

Investigates letter discrimination training and its transfer to a trigram recognition task. (RB)

Suggests the extent and manner in which the word characteristics of materials may be separated from and contribute to the strategies children develop for word identification. (RB)

The author attempts to develop a theory of learning to account for complex human learning using early reading as an example. (HMD)

Finds that auditory discrimination as most tests measure it has little to do with how well children learn to read. (RB)

Concludes that i.t.a taught first grade students demonstrate no negative achievements characteristics in reading, language arts factors, or spelling when compared to their T.O. counterparts in the 10th grade year on standardized tests of achievement. (RB)

Concludes that while Sustained Silent Reading (S.S.R.) may be an effective technique for teaching reading, the data which support it are inconclusive. (RB)

Compares the effectiveness of two reading programs for use with low socioeconomic first grade children. (RB)