A study was undertaken to identify the factor structure of a battery of readiness measures and to demonstrate the concurrent and predictive validity of one instrument in that battery--the Pre-Reading Screening Procedures (PSP). Concurrent validity was determined by examining the correlation of the PSP with the Metropolitan Readiness Test (MRT),…

It was hypothesized that college students' metacognitive behaviors would predict their reading achievement scores. Nelson-Denny Reading Tests scores were obtained for each of 66 students in undergraduate reading methods courses, and these students were asked to introspect about their behavior as they read an article related to course work.…

A study was conducted to determine the effect of repeated reading of taped literature on reading achievement of culturally different remedial students in the upper elementary grades. Twenty students were selected using a matched pairs design. The experimental treatment for ten students consisted of reading while listening to the tapes and the…

A total of 163 teachers were involved in a study to determine whether primary school teachers exhibited different attitudes toward specific kinds of oral reading errors than did teachers of older students, whether the attitudes of teachers of English as a second language and special education teachers were similar to the attitudes of regular…

The performance of good and poor readers was compared on a series of three visually presented paired associate tasks varying the verbal codability level of response items. Performance of the 32 poor readers was significantly lower than that of the 32 good readers across all three tasks. There were no differences between good and poor readers in…

The hypothesis that word context reduces visual rather than acoustic confusion between possible targets was tested in a series of experiments. All involved tachistoscopic presentation of letter strings followed by a pattern mask. Data from eight college students showed that target letters that are confusable only visually and acoustically…

Excerpts from articles in the "British Medical Journal" and "The American Journal of Medicine" were compared to determine which journal was easier to read and what stylistic traits might account for such ease. Nine paragraphs from the discussion sections of articles on hypertension were taken from each of the journals. When…

A study was conducted to collect information on the origins of reading and learning disabilities and on the characteristics of learning disabled children. Data were collected from case histories and evaluation and follow-up reports for 372 learning disabled subjects, aged 6 to 22 years. Characteristics of the subjects were similar to those of…

Two experiments assessed the effect of vocabulary difficulty on three measures of text comprehension--free recall, summary recall, and sentence recognition. In the first experiment, the effect of differing proportions of rare-word substitutions were examined in 79 sixth grade students. It was found that a high rate of difficult vocabulary (one…

Three aspects of sex differences in reading achievement were investigated, based on data from school records and test results for first through fourth grade students in two parochial schools. The three aspects that were studied included (1) the relationship between sex-typed perceptions of reading and reading achievement, (2) changes in students'…

Noting that the equipment traditionally used in eye movement research is both expensive and stationary in nature, this report describes apparatus for collecting and interpreting eye movement data that is both relatively inexpensive and portable. The report lists and describes hardware and software components of a data collection and data analysis…

A study evaluated the effects that a modified neurological impress method (a process whereby a student and a teacher read simultaneously) had on developing a student's decoding skills. Forty-two students in grades one through eight were randomly assigned to one of four groups: (1) a control group; (2) a group in which students read simultaneously…

Two studies were conducted in an effort to see if less skilled readers could be trained to pay closer attention to the hierarchically coherent aspects of text by representing text structures in nodes-relations flowcharts. The subjects were 88 students from two community colleges. A pretest-posttest design with controls was employed. The analysis…

Highlighting the significant reading gains of 9-year-old students and, to a lesser extent, 13-year-old students, this report presents the results of three assessments surveying the reading skills of American 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students during the 1970-71, 1974-75, and 1979-80 school years. The first chapter is introductory in nature,…

A study investigated the attitudes of secondary school content area teachers toward (1) reading disabled students, (2) teaching reading in the content areas, and (3) attending inservice workshops relating to the topic. Forty-five teachers completed a 62-item questionnaire. The results showed that approximately 50% of the teachers had acquired some…