Five tables of data from the three surveys conducted during the 1970s by the National Assessment of Educational Progress are presented in this paper, with an interpretation of them regarding reading improvement. The paper provides comparative data from schools eligible and noneligible for Title I assistance across the following variables: age,…

A study was conducted to examine and describe the knowledge and beliefs of elementary school teachers and students regarding the acquisition of reading comprehension skills during reading instruction and the application of those skills during social studies instruction. One teacher and 26 fourth and fifth grade students were observed daily over a…

Sixty-six children in three classrooms were tested at the end of their kindergarten year and again at the beginning of their first grade year to determine the effects of summer vacations on the gain or loss of beginning reading skills. The Letter and Word Reading Test, which was based on a developmental model of prereading and beginning reading,…

The task of unscrambling and reordering the sentences for six stories was completed by 455 third, sixth, and ninth grade students from three cultural groups (black, Anglo, and Hispanic) in a study of how sociocultural differences in story schemata affect reading comprehension. The results showed that the greatest effects were for grade level and…

A study was conducted to determine the influence of a holistic versus a phonic approach in beginning reading on children's comprehension scores at the end of grade two. Two groups, each of approximately 350 students, were studied. Group one began reading instruction in first grade using the "Early-to-Read i.t.a. Program" (initial teaching…

A study was conducted to determine (1) if teachers treated differing ability reading groups within their classes differently, (2) if teacher behaviors affected mean group achievement, and (3) if so, if that effect was similar for both high and low achieving reading groups. The study involved 14 classes, 39 reading groups, and 277 students. The…

A study was undertaken to relate the actual performance of teachers during reading instruction to their theoretical orientation as reflected on both the Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile (TORP) and the Propositions Inventory (PI). The specific instructional behavior investigated was guided oral reading. Subjects of the study were 35…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The ten titles deal with the following topics: (1) an investigation and selective assessment of secondary school reading programs in Illinois; (2) a comparison of the content of oral and written responses of tenth grade students to…

Seventy-four high school seniors participated in a study that examined the construct validity of vocabulary tests and the nature of verbal ability by integrating findings and theories of cognitive psychology with those of differential psychology. The subjects completed three kinds of measurement instruments: (1) an experimental faceted vocabulary…

A study was conducted to investigate the relationships between the cognitive variables of cognitive style, understanding of linguistic concepts, and knowledge of word boundaries, as well as their relationships to three measures of reading in beginning and more advanced readers. The children's Embedded Figures Test, a linguistic concept test, a…

Overviews of schema theory, which focuses on the cognitive operations engaged in by the reader, and discourse analysis, which focuses on structural characteristics of the text itself, are presented in this paper. The first section explains the notion of cognitive schemata (patterns of expectations that are applied to incoming information) and…

The relationship of teacher self-concept, knowledge of skills for teaching reading, and teaching effectiveness as judged by reading supervisors was examined in a study of 101 primary school teachers. The teachers were administered self-concept and knowledge of reading tests, and the effectiveness of each teacher was evaluated by a reading…

Forty low-achieving seventh and eighth grade students were involved in a study to ascertain whether intelligence, underachievement, or the difference between aural and sight vocabularies could predict relative learning rate with respect to reading achievement gains. For purposes of the study, "relative learning rate" was defined as the ratio of…

To investigate the effectiveness of the "The Holt Basic Reading System, 1977" in a variety of schools that had used the system for one or two years, a four-part field study was devised that involved selecting demographic data on the participating schools, assessing the judgments and ideas of the school administrators in regard to the…

To test whether secondary teachers' attitudes and knowledge of reading skills could be positively changed by inservice education, a university developed a content area reading project that offered instruction to junior high teachers at three school-based sites. The 57 teachers who were involved in the year-long program were provided with…