In order to determine the opinions of third grade remedial reading pupils about trade books recommended in library selection aids and special series books recommended for poor readers, 57 pupils completed statements on book inventory forms about 24 picture books and 24 series books. Data was gathered on book completion, interest, and difficulty…

This report summarizes the development and validation of a test of literal comprehension based on a modified cloze technique. This modification of the cloze offers an objective and partially computerized procedure for constructing items in the multiple-choice format. A field test of the multiple-choice cloze (MCC) involved the administration of 36…

Previous research used a picture-word interference task to show that skilled and less skilled comprehenders in the third and fifth grades could retrieve the meaning of primer-level words equally well. With a similar task and comparable groups of children this study assessed the relationship between word difficulty and semantic access by using both…

The lack of reading instruction for seventh and eighth graders is detrimental to their academic development at a most crucial educational period. This study presents both theory and data which substantiate the need for including reading as a specific curriculum element in the middle school. Middle school organizational plans are outlined and…

The purpose of this study was to determine with precise measurements of time and carefully constructed posttests whether sighted students in a college course would save time and achieve higher scores when listening to cognitive information using variable time compressors as compared with students listening using normal speed tape recorders. The…

From a total enrollment of 440 students in business communication classes, 270 voluntarily participated in a study of the relationship between the placement of performance objectives and reading comprehension. Students were tested for reading comprehension and were randomly assigned to one of two experiments and to pre-, post-, or no-objective…

This study investigated the possibility of training or improving intrasentence organizational skills (i.e., those that enable the reader to encode and process verbal information in higher-order units) and explored the effects that training had on reading comprehension. The subjects were 31 third graders, 16 experimental students and 15 control…

This study attempted to discover the relative contribution to spelling achievement (the dependent variable) of each of the following independent variables: intelligence, visual memory, auditory memory, structural analysis, phonetic analysis, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. Participating in the study were 190 students from six seventh-grade…

This study investigated the effect of the sex of an oral interpreter and the sex of the dramatic character portrayed on audience evaluation of performer effectiveness and audience comprehension of the passage presented. Two interpreters, one male and one female, each performed six monologues, three of which were feminine and three of which were…

This study examines gains in comprehension and vocabulary as measured by the "Gates MacGinitie Reading Tests" among students in grades two, four, and six, placed for reading instruction according to three systematic determinations of measured instructional level and students not placed other than by teacher judgment. No significant differences…

Stella Center's belief in the basic importance of grammatical structure as a factor in reading comprehension substantiated the author's theory that the ability to comprehend syntactic structure is positively correlated with the ability to comprehend meaning. Original instruments devised to test this hypothesis included a test which utilized…

This study examined the effects of three reading programs on the reading comprehension and vocabulary of 895 fifth graders and sixth graders. One program used a conventional basal reader; the second used the supplementary, behaviorally referenced Brentwood Educational System for Testing (BEST) and conventional basal reading materials; the third…

Word-deletion items to be used as measures of comprehension were constructed by deleting a content word from an ambiguous target sentence constrained by an accompanying context sentence. One hundred twenty, third-grade students and 120 sixth-grade students each completed all of the items as one of three degrees of contextual constraint. Analysis…

This study attempted to answer the following questions: Are all the concepts that reading tests are attempting to measure being taught in school? What are the characteristics of effective reading programs in school (e.g., amount of time, methods, materials, assistance, and support)? and What community-based variables are related to reading…

Oral interpretation should be an integral part of a reading program, as it teaches the reading skills while providing students with experiences in literature and opportunities for creative self-expression. Both reading teachers and content area teachers will benefit from an understanding of: the relationship between reading and oral…