THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BASAL READER FROM ITS BEGINNINGS IN THE LATE 1700'S TO ITS STATUS IN THE GRADED SCHOOLS OF TODAY IS SURVEYED. THE MCGUFFEY READERS ARE CITED AS THE FIRST CAREFULLY GRADED SERIES OF ONE READER FOR EACH GRADE IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. SINCE THEN, CHANGES IN CONTENT, TYPOGRAPHY, IN QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF ILLUSTRATIONS,…

THIS ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON INDIVIDUALIZED READING IS COMPOSED OF 62 CITATIONS RANGING IN DATE FROM 1952 TO 1964. MAJOR EMPHASIS IS PLACED ON RECENT BOOKS AND WIDELY CIRCULATED PERIODICALS WHICH ARE EASILY ACCESSIBLE. LISTINGS REPRESENT VARIED PRACTICES AND POINTS OF VIEW. THEY INCLUDE ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST INDIVIDUALIZED READING,…

Twenty-six articles and books, both pro and con kindergarten reading instruction, are selected to encourage objective consideration of the wisdom of early reading instruction, at least for some children. Research reports, descriptions of kindergarten programs, and studies of various aspects of readiness, ranging in date from 1937 through 1965, are…

A project designed (1) to determine the incidence of vocalism during silent reading in intermediate-grade children classified as either reading retardates or achievers and (2) to determine the desirability of this vocalism as an adjunct to the reading process was described. The major conclusions reached were that implicit speech is a natural…

Senior scientists representing a variety of research-oriented disciplines examine the reading process. Among the topics discussed are visual perception, the processing of written information, models for reading and speech, the relationship of spelling to sound, and areas of needed research. Also discussed are the influences of grammatical…

Summers' annotated bibliographies of secondary reading (1963, 1964), "Review of Educational Research,""Journal of Reading," ERIC/CRIER, and "Research in Education" are listed as resources for all phases of reading. A shifting of trends in the nature and scope of research topics in secondary reading is noted, with diagnosis and treatment,…

The importance of content-relevant pictures in the comprehension of the main idea of a paragraph was investigated. Various reading conditions were constructed which contained a paragraph, a picture, or both, each with three types of instructions. In addition, the effects of paragraph readability, student grade placement (grade 3 and 6), and sex…

General information about the cloze technique and summaries of experiments with adults and children in which it was used are presented. Results indicated that the most valid and reliable cloze test for measuring passage difficulty is one in which (1) an every nth mechanical mutilation system is used, (2) not more than 20 words in every 100 are…

This paper develops a model for generating sets of replicable items for testing a range of reading skills in the primary grades. The procedure is particularly concerned with tests to identify a child's profile in reading achievement and to inform a teacher, principal, or district of the actual level of achievement in reading. Although the model is…

Many typographers have already decided that sans serif type is more pleasing to readers and more functional than traditional roman type. The findings of this study, which was designed to assess the readability of, and reader preference for, these two styles, lead to the opposite conclusion. To determine preferences, 200 subjects of various ages…

In this investigation, 72 second-, fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade speakers of black English were studied in an attempt to determine whether a relationship exists between the speaking of black English and the reading of standard English. Two variables of oral language were examined: the degree of divergence from standard English and the ability…

This study investigated a psycholinguistic model of reading comprehension which attempts to relate readers' conceptual backgrounds to their ability to process syntactic structures. Specifically, the questions addressed involved the interaction between cognitive organizers and active and passive voices of verbs. Subjects included 409 third graders,…

This investigation tested the effects of a reading method on the ability of delinquent students to retain information. The method used involved a consolidation of advance organizers, student-developed pre-reading questions, establishment of purposes for reading, and the questions "who, what, where, when, why, or how." Eighteen subjects…

The 15 articles in this issue of "Reading in Virginia" focus on various aspects of reading instruction. Topics of the articles are an analysis of American Indian dialect and its implications for the reading curriculum, community involvement, 13 basic words, kinesics and reading, a psycholinguistic perspective of reading problems, how…

This survey of literature summarizes the findings of current research on sex differences in reading: studies relating to the validity of the sex-difference claim, studies examining the relationship between maturation factors and environmental characteristics, research concerned with factors in the home and school, and studies concerned with the…