Three flaws found in commercial reading materials, such as workbooks and kits, are discussed in this paper, and examples of the flaws are taken from specific materials. The first problem noted is that illustrations frequently provide the information that the learner is supposed to supply through phonetic or structural analysis; the illustrations…

In order to explore the relationship between word recognition and comprehension, the oral reading behavior of two types of disabled readers--readers with poor comprehension but adequate word-recognition abilities (LoC-HiWR) and readers with good comprehension and poor word-recognition abilities (HiC-LoWR)--was compared. Subjects read orally two…

Discussed is an oral reading procedure for children with reading problems which assesses a reader's competency through an analysis of comprehension evidenced by meaningful versus non-meaningful alterations to the reading text. It is explained that this analysis indicates that the poor reader's needs frequently may be at the syntactic and semantic…

Two Emergency School Aid Act (ESSA)-funded compensatory education reading programs served 1900 Minneapolis students in desegregated schools during 1974-75. Both programs generally met their objectives for comprehension gain among disabled readers. Students in the ESAA Intermediate Reading Program achieved a median rate of about 3 grade-score…

This study examined the effect of reading ability and frequency of object association on picture-verification latency in a group of 40 fifth graders. Subjects received sets of two slides each, the first of which was a sentence in which the subject and object were in either frequent or infrequent association. When the children had read and had…

Thirty adult, male, black students participated in a study of the effect of debate about textual issues on critical thinking and reading comprehension. Students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups, each of which was involved in 24 two-hour sessions of reading instruction. The control group used a traditional textbook…

An informal reading inventory (IRI), a nonstandardized individual test often constructed by the classroom teacher, can help teachers and clinicians in giving students appropriate reading materials and in diagnosing the strategies students use in reading. This annotated bibliography was designed to aid beginning teachers, as well as more…

This book concerning the teaching of reading comprehension (considered synonymous with reading interpretation) may be used in preservice reading methods courses at the elementary and secondary levels, as well as in inservice workshops which focus specifically on reading comprehension. The first part contains a detailed explanation of the skills…

Written by a group of English teachers in elementary and secondary independent schools, this second volume of the English notebook is divided into three sections: "Evaluations of Compositions Written in Class,""Tests on Comprehension of Prose," and "Tests on Comprehension of Poetry." Focusing on grades five through nine, these tests and…

The use of a cloze procedure to test reading comprehension in the foreign language learning situation is considered. A modification is proposed: to combine the cloze procedure with the multiple choice test thereby avoiding the need for language production and creating an element of control and flexibility. (SCC)

Students have been taught to recall specific details, but often are unable to read critically or to grasp the main ideas. (JH)

Good and poor student readers and adults read texts in normal format and with 13 spaces between words. Wide spacing improved comprehension for poor readers but did not affect their reading efficiency, while it substantially impaired the efficiency of the other groups. Text difficulty did not interact significantly with spacing. (SJL)

In secondary-task reading experiments, easy text filled cognitive capacity more completely than difficult text. A cognitive interpretation is that, in reading easy passages, the cognitive processors are full. But in difficult passages, frequent breakdowns in comprehension temporarily empty processor spaces, leaving cognitive capacity for the…

Describes a classroom activity that emphasizes syntactic fluency and the richness of linguistic resources available in written language, while downplaying the "dos and don'ts" of traditional punctuation instruction. (RL)