A study was conducted to verify and extend the limited research on children's home reading. Subjects, 26 third- and 40 fifth-grade students from two elementary schools were asked to respond to questions concerning their home reading habits and were also interviewed. Data analysis revealed a significant difference between high- and low-ability…

Focusing on phonograms and generalizations about phonics, this paper presents a comprehensive letter-sound study. The first chapter discusses the phonogram component of phonics, the Arthur Gates study of phonograms in l928, the phonics generalizations studies of the l960s, and the lack of a comprehensive study of the letter-sound relationship. The…

Children's reading comprehension of explicit, implicit, and metaphorical information was investigated to determine the effects of grade level and recall task type. After reading prose selections containing the three types of information, 40 second and 40 fifth grade students were assessed on either cued or free recall tasks. Their comprehension…

Using 660 elementary school students from six school districts as subjects, a study examined student performance in reading aloud from four different reading curricula (Houghton Mifflin; Ginn 720; Holt, Rinehart & Winston; and Scott, Foresman), and the sensitivity of scores within each curriculum to growth across grade levels. Three different…

A study measured student awareness of a variety of reading and study skill elements: author attitude and bias, signal words, vocabulary, organizing to read, notetaking, mental imagery, and reading flexibility. It also established a reliability coefficient for the Survey of Study-Reading Habits instrument, a 15-item, 4-point Likert type scale…

In November 1980, the National Institute of Education (NIE) sponsored a roundtable on Issues in Urban Reading, the proceedings and recommendations of which are included in this paper and focused on two major questions: What is contributing to the drop in reading scores during the elementary and middle school years? and What are the skills and…

A study was conducted to examine and describe the cultural knowledge, ideas, beliefs, and actions of children in a classroom as they acquire and apply reading skills. Subjects, 26 fourth and fifth graders and their teacher in one elementary classroom, were observed during reading and social studies instruction over a period of 4 months and were…

A study was conducted to describe the experiences of five preservice teachers who taught in a special practicum without cooperating teachers. Prior to the practicum, the student teachers were interviewed to ascertain their views on teaching reading and what they hoped to gain from the practicum to further prepare them to teach it. Each student was…

To offer a historical perspective on vocabulary studies, this paper presents summaries, reviews, and critiques of vocabulary studies in chronological order of publication. The only variance from this format are published rebuttals and/or critiques, which are presented immediately following the original studies. The paper is divided into two parts.…

A review of the research concerning the relationship between children's reading achievement and television viewing reveals many contradictions. For example, the findings show that the amount of television viewing that affects reading achievement in one child may not affect another in the same way. What a child watches on television also seems to…

Two experiments were conducted to distinguish empirically between the interactive and noninteractive models of reading. In the first study, 18 undergraduates divided into three groups by reading ability read stories in an RSVP mode. Two variables were manipulated within subjects--rate of presentation and amount of text presented per unit of time.…

As part of a wider study of metalinguistic skills, a study examined the metalinguistic awareness of the concept "word" of adults at different literacy levels. Subjects, 60 adult monolingual English speakers enrolled in adult education classes, were divided into three groups according to reading level. Data were gathered through a…

A study examined hierarchical relationships among three developmental components of reading ability in grades 1 through 3. It was predicted that semantic skills develop initially, followed by letter identification skills, phonological skills, and visual skills. Reading ability was assessed with a word identification task. The semantic components…

Working on the assumption that poor comprehenders of reading cannot retrieve relevant information to provide a context for the understanding of new information, a study sought to gather some empirical data about the retrieval of information. It was hoped that these data would validate some aspects of J. R. Anderson's ACT theory of memory (that…

A study was conducted to explore the reading habits, interests, and attitudes of older readers. One hundred and twenty readers aged 60 to 64 years participated in the Adult Inventory of Reading Interests and Attitudes (AIRIA) and were classified as minimal, moderate, and avid book readers. Fifty-five of these subjects were then interviewed. Among…