Reports that teachers' perceptions of children's reading ability are more closely related to how they view the children's behavior in class than to actual reading performance as measured by tests. (Author/FL)

Reviews recent studies dealing with the question of whether students' dialects interfere with their ability to read. Suggests three specific actions that educators concerned with reading instruction might take in order to enhance the quality of reading instruction for students with nonstandard dialects. (FL)

Describes a research study in which good readers were able to predict more successfully the outcomes of both concrete and abstract stories than were poor readers. (MKM)

Consists of a brief, annotated bibliography containing carefully-selected sources dealing with informal reading inventories. (JM)

Finds that the same systematic relationships between basic measures of cognitive processing and measures of reading performance can be observed in the reading of hypertext. Argues that correlations among spatial processing abilities and performance with hypertext support the idea that spatial and relational processing play important roles in…

Compared immediate ordered memory for words in poor readers and normal readers. Items (manipulated in word length and phonological similarity) were presented either auditorily or visually. Results suggested that phonological coding and rehearsal occur to the same extent in poor and normal readers with both presentations, but absolute performance…

Conducted a meta-analysis of 46 studies addressing the validity of classifying poor readers by the discrepancy between IQ and reading skills. Children who are poor readers but do not display such a discrepancy are not eligible for special education under the learning disability category. Results provide little evidence in support of the validity…

Telephone interviews with 538 adults in San Diego assessed literacy with recognition tests in the form of yes/no checklists. Nearly one in five scored on the lowest level; of these, 41% had 12 or fewer years of education. This group read less and watched television more than those at level 5, and 70% were employed in clerical, skilled, or…

Studies classroom practices to identify those that were most useful for improving students' reading ability. Describes the teacher practices observed in the classrooms, particularly those that are derived from the research of the last four decades. Examines the relationship between teachers' practices and students' growth in reading achievement.…

Examines children's awareness of influence of stories by discussing part of data from a two-year study that investigated the question: How is the reading and writing of children aged 6-12 years affected by previous textual experiences? Reports responses of grade 6 students who were asked whether they think of stories they have read when writing…

Discusses the Xerox/Kurzweil Personal Reader which is an advanced optical scanner that reads a greater range of typeset or typewritten text than its predecessors, and converts it into highly naturalistic speech. (MG)

The authors collected career information pamphlets for 16 jobs requiring little or no postsecondary education and analyzed these materials using Fry's readability formula. It was found that 26 of the 36 pamphlets analyzed were written at a postsecondary reading level; in fact, 14 were written at a reading level for college seniors. (CH)

Nineteen deaf high-school students were assessed on phonological recoding ability and metacognitive skills in reading. Results indicated that subjects demonstrated a significant degree of reliance on phonological recoding, and that reading skill was not related to individual differences in reliance on phonological recoding but was related to…

Investigates whether reading ability improves when students read relatively easy library books. Compares reading achievement of students in grades three, four, and five who read books at either above or below their reading level. Finds no evidence that either group gained in reading ability. Notes that later empirical evidence indicated no actual…