A study was conducted to investigate the degree to whicb subjects could be trained to improve the reliability of their diagnostic decisions about cases of reading difficulties. Twenty-eight graduate students enrolled in a reading diagnosis course were trained from G. B. Sherman's Model of Reading and Learning to Read, and practiced on simulated…

Since grade-appropriate levels of standardized achievement tests must frequently be used in Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I evaluations, there may be large discrepancies between test difficulty and the achievement level of those being tested, with resultant inaccuracies in the scores. Procedures based on the Rasch scaling model were…

Curriculum analyses, written by professional reading educators, of the 1978 Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress (IIEP) results, and teacher expectations regarding reading are presented. A random sample of 7,200 Illinois students (grades 4, 8, 11) within 360 schools were tested; results reflected their educational performance in reading…

Accurate estimation of variance components used in generalizability theory is essential for the theory to be viewed as an efficacious mechanism for studying the reliability and validity of a measurement procedure. This paper explores two alternatives for dealing with the apparent instability of small sample size used in determining the accuracy of…

THE FIRST YEAR OF A 3-YEAR PROJECT ENTITLED "COMPARING READING APPROACHES IN FIRST GRADE TEACHING WITH DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN" (CRAFT) IS REPORTED. CRAFT COMPARES A SKILLS-CENTERED APPROACH WITH A LANGUAGE-EXPERIENCE APPROACH TO TEACHING READING. VARIATIONS OF THE SKILLS-CENTERED APPROACH ARE THE BASAL READER METHOD AND THE PHONOVISUAL…

A COMPLETE REVIEW OF AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL GUIDANCE PILOT PROJECT IN SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, WAS PRESENTED. TWO CITY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN INTEGRATED, DISADVANTAGED AREAS WERE SELECTED. PREPLANNING OF THE DUTIES OF THE GUIDANCE COUNSELOR, GOALS OF THE PILOT PROGRAMS, AND EDUCATION OF TEACHERS AND COMMUNITY WERE COMPLETED. GUIDELINES ON ANECDOTAL RECORD…

The third of eight related documents, this monograph deals with the remedial reading aspects of the Reading Instruction and Pupil Personnel Services (RIPPS) program. The duties of the reading specialists in the program are described, as is the process by which children are screened and selected for the program. The prescription and remediation…

This issue of "Forum for Reading" contains four essays of interest to reading instructors at two-year colleges. Joan Gregg, Beth Pacheco, and Serena Nanda discuss the benefits for students of providing thematic unity in reading courses. The essay considers the selection of a theme, such as rebellion, identity, or family, that will lend…

Using informal, objectives-based, or linguistic methods, three elementary school teachers and three experienced item writers developed criterion-referenced pretests-posttests to accompany a prose passage. Item difficulites were tabulated on the responses of 364 elementary students. The informal-subjective method, used by many achievement test…

The Harris Index of Efficiency was used to evaluate the criterion setting (66%) of the Prescriptive Reading Inventory (PRI), a criterion referenced reading test. The subjects, who were involved in a larger experimental study that used the PRI as a criterion measure, were 92 third and fifth grade students. Initial assessment with the Comprehensive…

Sample test questions are given for the Proficiency Testing Program adopted by the Idaho State Department of Education. Except for the writing skills test item, which requires a writing sample, all questions are objective, multiple choice items. Sample questions are given for reading, spelling, and mathematics. (MH)

An instrument to assess elementary school teachers' knowledge of a subskills approach to teaching reading has been developed. In the first phase of the development, an outline of test content was devised and submitted to four reading authorities for evaluation. The second phase involved writing and selecting items for the preliminary test form.…

This report provides a detailed account of a three-year project that sought to determine how average and above average ten- and fifteen-year-old readers in Great Britain actually used reading in school. The 11 chapters cover the following topics: the origins, background, and development of the project; the differences between spoken and written…

The author examines some statistics which indicate entire classrooms of Indian students at the junior high school level are reading at the second or third grade level, and are graduated from high school with perhaps intermediate grade reading ability. Various surveys seem to have established that children are able to achieve at grade level through…

A comparison of the effects of a Language Arts Approach and a Basic Reader Approach when extended from grades 1 and 2 and applied in 22 third-grade classrooms is presented. The Language Arts or Language Experience Approach utilized children's oral language facility and experiences and their creative writing facility in the development of reading…