Experienced teachers enrolled in two graduate reading classes examined seven informal reading inventories (IRIs)--three at the elementary level and four at the secondary level--to (1) discover what text types (narrative or expository) they used at each level to measure student comprehension skills and determine instructional levels and (2)…

A study examined the usefulness of two rules of syllabification: (1) if the first vowel or vowel digraph in a word is followed by two consonants that are not parts of a consonant digraph, the first syllable ends with the first of the two consonants, such as, nor-mal; and (2) if the first vowel or vowel digraph in a word is followed by a single…

A review of research on reading and language development highlights the process of immersion, a concept posited by psycholinguistic theorists. Reading aloud, especially at an early age, significantly affects students as it bridges the gap between written and spoken language and familiarizes children with language patterns of literature, expands…

The Stroop color-word test involves a conflict situation in which subjects are asked to say aloud the ink color used to print a color word on a card. Interference occurs when the ink color is in conflict with the color word, such as 'red' printed in green ink. On the other hand, little interference occurs when asked to name the color words…

To address the issue of implementing research findings in the schools, 26 teachers enrolled in a graduate seminar in teaching reading applied research findings in their classrooms. Their instructor visited their classrooms and used her observations as discussion starters for the seminar, during which they also discussed assigned readings. They…

Enlarging upon the scope and agenda of earlier diagnostic research, a study was conducted to examine (1) teacher responses to receiving diagnostic information about some of their students, (2) effects on student achievement of teachers receiving both diagnostic information and diagnostic training, (3) diagnostic classifications that emerged from…

Automaticity training was provided to an experimental group of eight high school sophomores whose reading achievement fell below the seventy-fifth percentile on the New Jersey Minimum Basic Skills Test to determine the effect of such training on reading comprehension. The 16 subjects (experimental and control groups) were pretested using the Gates…

To determine whether the addition of study skills in the teaching of social studies would improve the learning of social studies content, a study was conducted comparing two fifth grade classes in social studies for a period of nine weeks. One fifth grade group of 15 students was the control group and the other fifth grade group of 17 was the…

To study the emergence of literacy during the preschool years, a handwritten diary, maintained on a day to day basis, focused on one child, David, from ages two and a half to four and a half. One facet of the study concentrated on his literary language--his incorporation of written texts (children's literature) into his language and background of…

A study examined student abilities to integrate semantically related propositions; and identified sources of comprehension difficulty for the unskilled reader. It also examined the influence of two types of relations (causal and adversative) and two types of connectives (conjunctions and verbs) on readers' comprehension, on-line integration of…

The conceptual base of a project that examined teachers' explanations of reading skills and strategies to low-ability students is reviewed in this paper. Following a brief discussion of the background of the project, the paper explores the curricular conceptions underlying it. Specifically discussed are two views of how direct instruction should…

A study examined the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a curriculum designed to teach 60 college level developmental reading students to use microcomputers (Apple) as learning tools and to improve their content area reading ability. The textbook from a biology course in which all but three of the subjects were enrolled was the source for…

A study evaluated the phonics performance of skilled adult readers using the D. Durkin phonics test, which was also used in 1984 to measure the phonics ability of children. The test, which was given to 25 college juniors and seniors, consisted of 29 regularly spelled pseudo or nonsense words to be pronounced aloud by the subjects. Results…

To determine whether students have study strategies that they can transfer to future learning tasks, a research study used a content-based model--the Supportive Seminar--a voluntary content review session held by a leader enrolled in a targeted college course for freshmen. The leader acts as a role model for the students by attending all lectures,…

Acknowledging that the literary quality of children's stories strongly affects reading comprehension and interest in reading, a study examined how inside view (the insight an author provides about a character's thoughts and feelings) affects the presentation of character beliefs and plans. The study was based on the following premises: (1) basal…