This report, the summary of a series of conferences on reading research, identifies two main theories about the nature of reading: (1) reading as translation, wherein printed symbols are translated into an approximation of oral language, so that the capabilities for understanding speech can be applied to written language, and (2) reading as an…

This study compared the effectiveness of intensive versus extensive courses to improve reading rate and comprehension. Subjects were 46 government employees who voluntarily enrolled in either a five-and-one-half-week course or in one of two eleven-week courses. The three courses were alike in hours of instruction, instructor, content, tests, and…

This study compares the validity of three cloze procedures (traditional, limited, and least-major-constituent limited) when reading comprehension is defined as cognitive change. Over 400 seventh and eighth graders from public schools in North Carolina and Arizona were randomly assigned to one of the three cloze formats for either fiction or…

In view of the great amount of television viewing among poor readers, the Learning Model for Watching Television was developed to capitalize on students' television watching proclivities. The model encompasses three major overlapping component skill areas to reinforce classroom learning: active listening skills, auditory word recognition skills,…

The use of the behavioral science principle of contingency in several approaches to teaching beginning reading is discussed in this paper. The failure to provide a contingent relationship between the given reading skill and student success in demonstrating the skill can lead to repeated apparent successes without the student actually manifesting…

Two conflicting hypotheses exist regarding how oral reading behavior patterns follow from encounter with the text. One hypothesis views them as following decoding (decoding hypothesis), and the other sees them as occurring after comprehension processes have constructed a semantic representation of the message. These hypotheses are further…

Evaluative comments from one participant in the June 1976 Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading are presented in this paper. Discussion centers on curriculum analyses, testing practices, teaching practices, units of analysis that are required for reading research, learning characteristics, stages of reading…

In order to determine how to enable teachers to become more effective in individualizing reading instruction, 75 preservice teachers who were enrolled in a general education course were observed as they tutored second and third grade children in reading twice a week for one semester. A brief analysis of the literature on the behavior of teachers…

Recognizing that affective factors related to learning can be measured and that attitude influences learning, this study investigated the relationship between parental attitudes and children's reading ability. A short form, self report parent questionnaire was administered to 107 sets of parents whose children had been referred to a diagnostic…

This document summarizes 599 reports of reading research published between 1 July 1975 and 30 June 1976. The research studies are categorized in six major areas, four of which have been subcategorized. The majority of studies reported were classified in the area of the physiology and psychology of reading. Large subdivisions under that major…

Elementary teachers should focus attention on language activities that involve naturally the reciprocal relationships among listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Teachers need to value, use, and make useful the background and language of all students, through a Language Experience Approach (LEA) in which students dictate and write about…

This paper reports the interim results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of the Chicago Mastery Learning Reading Program, an application of Bloom's mastery-learning instructional model to the elementary reading curriculum. Two approximately equivalent classrooms were selected from each of 10 inner-city schools with minority pupils who were below…

This paper considers many aspects of children's response to literature. Among the topics discussed are factors within the child (related to age, sex, and intelligence) that teachers and researchers agree may affect a child's enjoyment of literature; a research study on the relationship between story content and a child's psychological and…

Recent research in the many aspects of reading is reviewed. (JH)

A study was undertaken to develop an evaluation procedure that could be used to analyze the cognitive requirements of instructional materials used to teach beginning reading. The study involved four phases. The first phase, an examination of the literature in order to create a basis for the development of assessment procedures, included an…