Studies the reading demands placed on college freshmen (amount, purpose, and relationship to course examinations of required reading) and students' perceptions of these demands. (SR)

Investigates word recognition criteria at the instructional level. Finds that primary and intermediate grade students score below the Betts criteria when miscues are counted but score above the criteria when only significant miscues are counted. Concludes that the Betts criteria are too stringent, especially for primary grade students. (RS)

Addresses the need to include all available data (physical, environmental, language, cognitive, affective, and educational correlates of reading) to evaluate students' reading strengths and weaknesses. Argues that this holistic approach makes the assessment of reading skills efficient and avoids test replication. (RS)

Measures the relationship between developmental maturity and performance on a test of reading readiness. Finds no significant difference in performance between boys and girls or between older and younger children. Concludes that reading readiness is in large measure determined by the nature of the reading program. (RS)

Examines the effect of a tree diagram on college students' comprehension of main ideas in a social sciences expository text. Concludes that the tree diagram significantly improved comprehension of main ideas and relations between elements, irrespective of the students' initial verbal and visual aptitudes. (RS)

Presents a corrected and slightly expanded abstract of Alison Preece's doctoral dissertation on the development of young children's productive narrative competence, winner of the International Reading Association's Outstanding Dissertation Award for 1986-1987 (See EJ 378 645). (RS)

Compares use of two decoding strategies in fifth-sixth grade normal and dyslexic children, and younger normals reading-aged-matched to the dyslexic students. Finds dyslexics lag behind age-matched normals in use of both strategies, and behind reading-age-matched normals in use of analogies, but not rules. (RS)

Examines the effect of the content of reading material on students' perceptions of reading as masculine or feminine. Finds that during the second grade, students' views on reading change from sex-neutral to more feminine than masculine, and that the content or genre of the reading material influences this perception. (RS)

Explores reader and text effects on the production of mental imagery during and after reading a poem, a story, and two expository texts. Finds that imagery occurs spontaneously during and after reading all texts and that the production of imagery is affected by both reader and text. (RS)

Examines basic literature on the various methods of establishing reading groups. Proposes a new method using curriculum-based measurement. Suggests that this method can be potentially effective and efficient in establishing reading groups. (MG)

Examines two major reasons that schools have adopted computers without careful prior examination and planning. Surveys a variety of criticisms targeted toward some aspects of computer-based instruction in reading in an effort to direct attention to the beneficial implications of computers in the classroom. (MS)

Analyzes the familiarity or distance aspects as well as interest in topics of texts in the light of reader-text interaction. Results found that familiarity and interest with a topic of a text may influence the reading process in terms of evaluation, reader text interaction, and critical reading. (20 references) (Author/VWL)

Evaluates the syntactical features (readability) and demands placed on students' memory (number of steps) by basal reader worksheet directions in the three most common basal reading series. Concludes that, with the exception of one series' demand on memory, worksheet directions are not designed according to students' competency level. (RS)

Examines whether content area textbook passages could be rewritten so that middle grade students' main idea comprehension ability was enhanced. Finds that after reading rewritten text versions, some students could compose significantly more passage main ideas, and all students could compose significantly more paragraph main ideas. (MM)

Investigates effects of topic interest, writing ability, and summarization training on seventh-grade subjects' performance on multiple-choice tests and ability to summarize a social studies text. Finds that multiple-choice and summarization measures overlap little in the kinds of text comprehension they assess. (RS)