This study compared the rapid word processing abilities of groups of students in college, fourth grade, second grade, and kindergarten to see if there is a developmental pattern in such skill development, and to see if phonics training should emphasize either letters and the orthographic rules that create words or letter clusters (common words)…

An instructional program that teaches decoding skills to learning disabled children was developed to serve as a supplement to whatever reading program is used in the classroom. As a result of task analysis, the program's instructional sequence begins with auditory tasks analyzing syllables and short words into phonemes, then blending these…

"Project Assist," conducted in two elementary schools and one junior high school, tested the hypothesis that students in schools with trained instructional reading aides will read better than students in schools with either untrained aides or no aides. This report presents data on the project gathered during the 1974-1975 school year.…

The main purpose of this study was to determine and describe the effects of the comprehension component of the criterion-referenced reading program, Wisconsin Design for Reading Skills Development (WDRSD), on reading achievement and self-concept of sixth-grade students. Parametric techniques were employed in a quasi-experimental study involving 44…

This book is written for kindergarten teachers who are interested in acquainting children with reading, in developing skills in preparation for formal reading, and in guiding those who already can read or who wish to learn to read. Five chapters give the teacher a general structure and specific suggestions for helping children with reading:…

This report provides a nontechnical summary of a series of studies from a research project with three major foci: memory storage dynamics, memory retrieval dynamics, and coding in semantic memory. A theory of forgetting was developed, involving time and interference factors. Memory traces have two properties: strength and fragility. Consolidation…

The dialog method of second-language learning, in which students have many opportunities to hear, read, and use standard English in a relevant and motivating setting, was adapted to general classroom use in elementary and junior high schools in which there was a high percentage of Spanish-speaking students and in which mean reading scores were…

This study compares the critical-reading strategies of 83 good and 72 poor sixth-grade readers and 96 good and 67 poor eighth-grade readers. After reading seven brief passages on social studies and science topics, the students responded to 42 statements that required either the ability to pull facts together and make conclusions based on unstated…

This paper discusses a research project carried out to study and compare the reading processes of native and second language speakers of English. The procedure developed for the observation and description of the reading process and related language experience included initial diagnostic testing and taped inventories, a sequence of tutorial…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 27 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effect of a crowded or spaced appearance of narrative material on the reading comprehension of above-average and below-average fourth grade students; (2)…

A study tested the instructional hypothesis that variation in instructional methods in the initial stages of formal reading development will differentially develop subsystems for attaining comprehension. The 91 kindergarten and first grade students in the study received their usual reading instruction plus supplementary instruction in one of four…

A 4-year project, Conceptions of Reading, was established to provide information about how teachers use reading theories and models and other conceptions as they plan and carry out reading instruction. The nature of the methodology dictated that the over-all goal of the project be to characterize how teachers think about reading and their reading…

This monograph is one in a series of semiannual reports that focus on research related to reading in secondary schools. The four reports collected in this monograph examine the following topics: (1) attitudes of preservice secondary school teachers toward reading in the content areas; (2) the effects of a content area reading institute upon…

The limitations and advantages of any given measure of performance used to classify students as good or poor readers have not been investigated thoroughly. A study was conducted to determine what happens on several dependent measures of comprehension when the same students are separated into good and poor readers based on different criteria.…

A pilot study involving 55 Canadian university students demonstrated the value of administering an attitude inventory and a needs assessment instrument to adult students before attempting to teach them basic literacy skills. In addition to designing and piloting the two instruments, the purposes of the study included comparing expressed attitudes…