An effort to lay the foundation for the preparation of reading programs which will match the social and linguistic background of lower-class children, in particular children of the nation's black ghettos, is made in this paper. The paper consists of five sections. The first section discusses the interconnection of social, geographic, and stylistic…

This study investigated the effects of three different word-decoding instructional procedures: a single-letter (SL) approach, a letter-combination (LC) approach, and a procedure in which children receive several weeks' instruction in the SL method and then switch to the LC approach. Grade 1 pupils were assigned at random to the three treatment…

The purposes of this conference panel were to suggest ways of bringing basic and applied research on reading comprehension into an interaction that would enhance both theory and practice, and to develop an approach to the design and study of instructional practice that would maximize the relevance of instructional research for both the public and…

The purpose of this study was to determine if differences existed between second- and fifth-grade students' word recognition errors, and if differences existed between the word attack strategies utilized by them. Using the Informal Reading Inventory, a random sample of twenty-five second graders and twenty-five fifth graders was taken from three…

The procedures for establishing a reading clinic in the Lufkin Independent School District are reported. Specifically discussed are (1) the qualifications and selection of staff (director, clinicians, secretary/librarian); (2) suggested materials for word recognition and comprehension; (3) diagnostic procedures and tools used; (4) the…

Approximately 150 references to speed reading published during the past 40 years, including 50 new entries, are included in this revised annotated bibliography. The new entries relate mainly to research but also include some references to theoretical discussions. The references are grouped into the categories of tachistoscopic and controlled…

Since pronunciations of vowel clusters are among the most unpredictable letter-sound correspondences in English and therefore children learning to read must often rely on something other than spelling as a clue to pronunciation of vowel cluster words, data relating to pronunciation frequencies of certain vowel clusters were gathered for this…

The relationships between Southern Negro dialect exposure, age, reading ability, and auditory discrimination were studied. The subjects were 112 students randomly selected from grades 2 and 4 from two elementary schools in Richmond and Martinez, California. The predominant speech pattern at one school was Southern Negro dialect; at the other…

Training in word recognition based on a child's dominant sensory modality (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic) was compared with training based on nondominant modality. Twenty-five first-grade children with no prior instruction in reading were given visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities tests and a pretest of recognition of the words used in…

A model for transforming data from verbal learning experiments into tables useful to an educational technician was developed, based on a similar one for scientific agriculture. The necessary data were obtained through two experiments replicated upon relevant populations. In the first study, a series of free-recall experiments were performed using…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of individual adult-child conferences in increasing the independent reading of elementary school children. Following an 8-week baseline period, second, fourth, and sixth graders of both high and low reading achievement were randomly assigned to no-conference, teacher-conference, or…

Designed to give teachers, specialists, and students insight into the historical development of trends, theory, research, and current practices in reading instruction, 82 selections written over a period of nearly 150 years have been compiled from books, monographs, pamphlets, yearbooks, conference proceedings, and education periodicals. The…

The effects of parent-monitored practice at home on pupil performance in reading were investigated. The study used as instructional vehicles the Parent-Assisted Learning Program (PAL) and the Southwest Regional Laboratory's (SWRL) First-Year Communication Skills Program. PAL was designed to enable school personnel to establish a system whereby…

Results of an investigation of the effects of perceptual training upon selected measures of reading achievement are reported. Subjects were 87 second-grade children of average intelligence who had evidenced reading difficulties as well as perceptual deficits. They were chosen from the Glen Cove, New York, school district on the basis of their…

Three major areas of needed research in language and reading development for children of Spanish-speaking backgrounds are presented in a general overview. The first area of need is that of normative and descriptive studies of prelearning processes. This includes analyses of language base and home language behavior and is aimed at a more precise…