Despite widely-held beliefs to the contrary, three different sources of research data prove that children in the 1990s read better on the average than either their father's generation or their grandfather's generation. "Then and Now" studies indicate that students read better now than decades ago. Restandardization of test norms also…

One of 10 reports commissioned by the National Academy of Education, this report investigates topics related to an assessment program piloted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) designed to support state-by-state and state-to-nation comparisons of student performance in reading. The report focuses on three issues: (1) the…

Most of the 77 tests described in this bibliography are for elementary secondary level students. The tests are used to assess students' study and reference skills. Many are subtests contained in a test battery. A separate bibliography assessing library skills is also available. This document is one in a series of topical bibliographies from the…

Designed to assess the ability to interpret the major types of figurative language or tropes such as similes, metaphors, proverbs, and personification, the two forms of this instrument each contain 50 items in a two-part, multiple-choice format. Part I tests the meaning of figures of speech in isolation; part II tests the meaning in the context of…

Describes the reading test of the McGraw-Hill Basic Skills System, including aspects of norming and validity. (RB)

Teachers must know and understand kids, their language and the reading process in order to help them. (Editor)

Describes a series of reading tests devised especially for students in a vocational school. (RB)

A multitude of methods has been proposed to estimate the sampling variance of ratio estimates in complex samples (Wolter, 1985). Hansen and Tepping (1985) studied some of those variance estimators and found that a high coefficient of variation (CV) of the denominator of a ratio estimate is indicative of a biased estimate of the standard error of a…

A study compared the reading placement levels of Chapter 1 students as indicated by dynamic and static assessment models to determine whether these students could benefit from basal instruction at a higher level of difficulty than would normally be indicated by static assessment. Subjects, 21 third grade Chapter 1 students, received treatment…

This document contains a detailed listing of topics covered in the mathematics and reading portions of the 1973 Form S and the 1981 Form U of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS). Chages in the overall structure of the CTBS, new topics included in Form U and old topics not covered, and changes in the arrangement of topics across the…

Reading comprehension, viewed from a psycholinguistic perspective, is a process of mapping new information into existing knowledge structures and is similar to general thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. Reading comprehension is an active process--a dialogue between writer and reader--and an integration of the printed page and the reader's…

Conforming to the U.S. Department of Education's Chapter 1 Evaluation and Reporting System which requires local education agencies to report periodically on the sustained effects of participation in Chapter 1 programs, a sustained effects study evaluated student performance in New York City's Chapter 1 English-language reading programs during the…

The third in a series of studies to assess the reading achievement of Indiana students, a study compared the reading achievement of sixth and tenth graders in 1944-45, 1976, and 1986. The same edition of the Iowa Silent Reading Test (ISRT) was administered to sixth- and tenth-graders in 1944-45, 1976, and 1986. The 1944-45 sample consisted of 25%…

The purpose of this paper is to further the cause of clarifying construct interpretations of tests, by proposing that non-metric multidimensional scaling may be more useful than factor analysis or other latent structure models for investigating the internal structure of tests. It also suggests that typical problems associated with scaling…

An investigation of the effect on the difficulty value of an item due to position placement within a test was made. Using a 60-item operational test comprised of 5 subtests, 60 items were placed as experimental items on a number of spiralled test forms in three different positions (first, middle, last) within the subtest composed of like items.…