A study examined the ways in which children recall structured text. Subjects, eighty-eight 12- to 13-year-old children, studied a short passage for five minutes which was printed in either a "chunked" format (where phrases are segmented or presented on separate lines) or a "traditional" one. The children were then asked to…

A study established whether self-esteem had a positive significant effect on reading achievement. Data were collected from 117 fourth-grade students in a middle class suburban setting. Results of a self-esteem test (the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale) were correlated to standardized reading test scores (California Achievement…

A study explored the phenomenon of space constancy or visual stability of stimulus patterns across saccades (a series of small jerky movements of the eye) by making changes in natural, full-color pictures during selected saccades as observers (18 members of the University of Illinois community) examined them for 20 seconds in preparation for a…

This study was conducted to determine which method for vocabulary instruction was most beneficial: learning words through the context of literature and reading or through isolated word lists. Subjects, 45 high school students taking Freshman English, were divided into 2 groups. All students were studying Charles Dickens' novel "Great…

This study investigated, with a dissociation paradigm, the distinction between remembering the information in a text, and learning from a text and applying the acquired knowledge (e.g., by making inferences). After reading an expository text, subjects (110 undergraduates) performed either a memory (recognition) or an inferencing (verification)…

A study examined an interaction effect observed in an earlier study in which texts about three obscure religions were presented to undergraduates who studied them under three conditions: with a study guide that analogized the religion to Christianity; with a study guide that did not employ analogies; and without aid. Scores were significantly…

Concludes that test results are essentially the same for both the Flesch and Gunning reading indices. (RB)

Compares two major methods for teaching phonics. (RB)

Presents a psycholinguistic view of the reading process through a review of the pertinent literature. (RB)

This study examined whether post-reading comprehension would be affected by the inclusion of pictorial material with a story and a prereading prediction questionnaire. Subjects, 75 heterogeneously grouped fourth grade students randomly assigned to one of three groups, either (1) read a basal reader passage with pictorial material; or (2) read the…

A study compared college students' reading attitude to their achievement in reading comprehension. Subjects, 81 students enrolled in one of three college level reading improvement courses, completed the Mikulecky Behavioral Reading Attitude Measure (MBRAM) and had their scores compared to the results of the reading comprehension test of the New…

A study investigated free recall of information bounded by internally inconsistent sentences compared to the same information in consistent text versions. Data were elicited from 40 undergraduate students enrolled in classes in educational psychology. Subjects were instructed to read one consistent and one inconsistent (containing two propositions…

William S. Gray, first president of the International Reading Association, is the focus of this booklet. Sections are devoted to "The Person," which includes Gray's family background, early schooling and teaching jobs, and his further education at Illinois State University, the University of Chicago, and Teachers College (Columbia…