A study examined the performance on the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) for first grade students from a rural northwestern school who had received reading instruction via a structured, phonics-based reading program. Specifically, the study compared the performance of (1) three students scheduled for retention because of poor…

Four six-year-olds and their mothers were observed during the summer prior to starting first grade in a study designed to expand knowledge of the nature of verbal interactions during book reading. All of the children had some knowledge of letters and were making satisfactory progress in reading. The seven or eight observation sessions were taped…

Focusing on improving college students' reading efficiency, a study investigated whether a commercially-prepared computerized speed reading package, Speed Reader II, could be utilized as effectively as traditionally printed text. Subjects were 70 college freshmen from a college reading and rate improvement course with borderline scores on the…

Research and observation have indicated that there is a connection between reading and writing. This connection has been confirmed through the research of D. Graves, L. Calkins, G. Bissex, and M. Baghban. Cognitive theorists believe that reading and writing involve similar schema or structures. Much of the pedagogy and research suggest that the…

Commercially developed basal reading programs are used in most elementary school classrooms in the United States. Yet often neither the publishers developing these programs nor the members of textbook adoption committees selecting programs are able to take advantage of the best available knowledge about the reading process and reading instruction.…

A study was conducted to investigate ways in which reading comprehension could be instructionally influenced and whether that influence differentially affected young and elderly adult learners. The study attempted, too, to determine whether advance organizers--instructional aids designed to precede a main passage and to provide an organizational…

The elicitation procedures currently used by E. Sulzby in studies of emergent storybook reading were developed by addressing (1) how the wording of the elicitation request given sets up expectations on the child's part regarding language and behavior, (2) how the role that the investigator takes during the session affects the child/investigator…

A study examined whether ACT subtest scores can be used to predict reading skills, as measured by the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, with a degree of accuracy that would support their use as a screening device for college placement. ACT test scores of 2,431 students were used to predict Form C Nelson-Denny raw scores. ACT test scores from 3,016…

In response to recommendations by a National Institute of Education (NIE) planning group to the effect that NIE should support efforts to understand the cognitive processes involved in acquiring basic reading skills and in comprehending linguistic messages, this book summarizes what has been learned about reading comprehension in the decade since…

A study investigated how text features influence the amount of vocabulary knowledge students acquired incidentally while reading expositions. Three sets of text features were identified from studies on comprehension: (1) features associated with the macrostructure, (2) features associated with logical and temporal relations in the microstructure,…

A study was conducted to determine if there were significant differences in vision between beginning readers who learn to read easily and those who learn with difficulty (dyslexics). In addition, the study examined the mean of the high achievers (rather than expert opinion) to discover the degree to which visual efficiency was normally needed for…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 11 titles deal with the following topics: (1) teacher self-assessment and analysis of feedback to student miscues during oral reading; (2) the humor found in basal readers appropriate to second and fourth grade students; (3) an…

A study examined the use of lookback strategy (selective rereading of text material to clarify inconsistent information) employed by good and poor readers attempting to monitor their own reading comprehension. Using microcomputers, narrative and expository texts containing inconsistencies were presented one line at a time on a "page" of…

The details of a 6-year investigation entitled the Education Testing Service (ETS) Collaborative Research Project on Reading, which brought researchers and educators together in classroom studies of young children learning to read, are presented in this book. The first four chapters of the book describe the theoretical rationale, design, and…

Three readability formulas were applied to chapters from six textbooks to determine (1) if there was a significant difference in readability of three consecutive textbook editions of a seventh grade and of an eighth grade text over a 12-year period (1968-1980), and (2) whether eighth grade students would perform equally to the same content from a…