The reading interests of middle-grade children vary widely, are similar for black and white children, and are influenced by socioeconomic factors. (JH)

This paper discusses behavior modification principles designed and implemented to increase the on-task performance of 22 first-graders during study and class time for two daily reading periods. Acceptable behavior in class included listening and participation in activities and, during study time, included keeping busy with reading activities and…

This paper discusses a study designed to evaluate the use of semantic and syntactic expectations in reading. Sixteen college-student subjects, measured for reading proficiency by the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, were divided equally into a fast-reading group (350-450 words per minute) and an average-speed reading group (200-275 words per minute).…

The National Institute of Education (NIE) Conference on Studies in Reading, held in 1974, featured ten panel discussions, each focusing on a designated topic related to reading. This publication reviews the reports of recommended research and development activities produced by the panels for the following topical areas: semantics, concepts, and…

This paper discusses the use of newspapers, magazines, and high interest/low vocabulary materials in teaching reading skills to secondary educable mentally retarded (EMR) students. Among the topics it considers are the following: the importance of teaching reading to EMR students through approaches that research indicates are effective, reading…

There are two educational facts of life: some children are hard to teach and the need exists for some form of remedial reading instruction. This paper seeks to impress on teachers the need to identify those children who are hard to teach and then to adapt the components of remedial reading instruction to fit the needs of those students. This…

The difficulties involved in putting reading theory into practice are summarized in this report, which provides examples of the fragmentation of research by many theoretical models that inhibits their practical application. Throughout the discussion, references and evaluative comments are made concerning the papers that were presented at the…

A three-year study was conducted at a California junior college to determine the number of college freshmen who needed assistance/counseling in reading achievement. In the first phase of the study (1974-1975), all entering freshmen were administered the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, Form C. The same instrument was used during the second phase of the…

Four randomly selected classes of learning-disabled children (N = 46) participated in a study of the effect of paradigmatic training in oral language skills on specific reading abilities. Two classes used the Key to Learning series as the experimental treatment, and two classes served as a control group. Tests of reading skills and of paradigmatic…

A study was conducted to determine (1) the extent to which the degree of use of PRI/RS (the Prescriptive Reading Inventory Reading Systems, a criterion referenced management system developed by CTB/McGraw Hill) affected comparable groups of students on standardized achievement measures; (2) whether the degree of use differentially influenced…

The language of 29 Canadian children was sampled during the first two years of schooling in free conversations and in more formal school-like tasks as part of a three-year longitudinal study of the properties of oral language and their relation to other measures of cognitive, linguistic, and reading performance. The language samples were subjected…

Two experiments examined the effects of definition and synonym as context clues embedded in three types of text (fiction, exposition, and science). It was predicted that (1) type of text would influence clue usage; (2) difficulty of the text, based on increasingly more detailed complex information, would interfere with the use of clues; (3) clue…

The many studies comparing good and poor readers have yielded few conclusive findings as a result of a number of problems. The first set of problems has to do with the choice of tests or tasks. There are many differences in the cognitive demands of reading and listening tasks children encounter in school. In listening, prosodic cues facilitate…

A study investigated the proposition that males have a predominant tendency to encode visually when reading, whereas females tend to encode phonologically. Arabic symbols were used to teach a group of 24 college students to "read." Subjects were assigned randomly to one of two conditions: learning the symbols as "letters" one by one with the aid…

As part of the work from the Content Area Reading Project (CARP), which focuses on inservice teacher education in content area reading, a study examined the effects of an inservice content area reading program that involved two three-hour workshops per month on the theory and practical application of teaching methods for content area reading…