The Assessment Policy Committee of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has directed the NAEP staff to focus the 1985-86 Assessments of Reading, Mathematics, Science, and Computer Competence on the higher-order skills. Each Learning Area Committee worked independently developing three-dimensional models. These defined what could…

A study examined: (1) the feasibility of using concept maps as a measure of content achievement; and (2) whether these measures were sensitive to knowledge learned after reading expository text. Subjects, 131 eighth-grade students, were taught a mapping technique which required them to analyze ideas into propositions and then arrange them into…

An assessment analysis was performed to determine whether sets of items designed to measure three different subskills of reading comprehension of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBSs) did, in fact, distinguish among these subskills. The three major skills objectives were: (1) facts; (2) generalizations; and (3) inferences. Data from…

In order to evaluate an experimental writing program involving word processors as tools, a study examined the use of cloze techniques as a method for indicating reading progress as it relates to writing. Subjects, 87 Canadian primary school children, were involved in a three-year longitudinal study of the effects of this experimental writing…

In order to provide a comprehensive view of the cumulative effect of the South Carolina Basic Skills Assessment Program (BSAP) on students' learning, a study examined reading and mathematics achievement by all students in the program over a 5-year period (1981-1985), as measured by the testing portion of the BSAP. Subjects were students in grades…

A study was conducted to provide insight into the consistency of reading achievement scores from four standardized tests. Several sets of data were compared to assess the accuracy of grade equivalents or instructional reading levels obtained on standardized tests. Each test was randomly assigned for administration to 23 third graders in a group…

The articles in this booklet address the questions raised by the Maine Learning Consortium in its efforts to look closely at, describe, and assess the use of programs such as the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI). Based on interviews with six teachers, the first article examines student achievement gains through the use of ECRI.…

The specific performance characteristics of eight alternative cloze test formats were examined at the fourth and sixth grade levels. At each grade, 64 subjects were randomly assigned to one of four basic treatments (every-fifth/standard, every-fifth/cued, total random/standard, and total random/cued) and tested. Responses on each of the cloze…

The "Test Development Notebook" is a resource designed for the preparation of tests of literal comprehension for students in grades 1 through 12. This volume contains 100 multiple-choice cloze exercises taken from test instructions, instructional magazines, encyclopedias, reference books, and children's magazines; and the accompanying answer key.…

In 1981, the reading achievement of a representative sample of Queensland (Australia) Year 5 students was assessed by using a test that measured skills in the areas of vocabulary, comprehension, and speed of reading. The aim of this testing was to compare reading achievement in 1981 with reading achievement in 1971 and 1976. Comparisons of…

Two related studies were conducted to determine whether students read all-capital text and mixed text displayed on a computer screen with the same speed and accuracy. Seventy-seven college students read M. A. Tinker's "Basic Reading Rate Test" displayed on a PLATO computer screen. One treatment consisted of paragraphs in all-capital type…

This study was conducted to establish Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) cutoff scores for the assignment of the appropriate level of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests to individual Navy recruits. The Word Knowledge (WK) and Paragraph Comprehension (PC) scores were combined to provide a composite score useful as a predictor of an…

The construct validity of measures of reading comprehension was discussed. A word deletion procedure was proposed consistent with a model of comprehension which emphasizes the importance of context. The procedure assures sensitivity to context by allowing only highly constrained words to be deleted and by increasing the information value of…

The distinguishing characteristics and relationships found among the "Analytical Reading Inventory," the "Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty," and the Spache "Diagnostic Reading Scales" in terms of readability levels, oral and silent reading results, and independent and instructional reading levels were examined in a study involving 117 first,…

Reading comprehension tests usually contain reading passages followed by multiple choice questions about the passages; but one potential weakness of this format is that the questions may be "passage independent," answerable without necessarily reading the passage first. When examining this phenomenon by assessing a particular test, the…