People with reading difficulties experience automatic gaze guidance when using gliding text (subtitles). Reading exercises with gliding text eliminated reading difficulties for 21 second graders in 24 15-minute sessions. Mean reading speed increased from 10 to 24 words per minute. (SK)

To win new readers, many newspapers are now wooing students and teachers. They offer youth-oriented pages and sections that simplify adult news or examine topics of special interest to teens. Teachers tend to consider newspapers worthwhile educational tools. The article describes how various newspapers deal with students. (SM)

Argues that reading assessment must be reexamined and should focus on students' ability to apply learning strategies across content areas. Proposes a new method of assessment using observational and performance-based measures, process assessments, and content/course specific instruments. (HB)

Three issues in the debate over reading are (1) choice of instructional materials; (2) methods of teaching and testing; and (3) national standards for reading. Advocates a rational approach that recognizes limitations of tests to assess reading attainment and uses social dimensions and links with other language modes. (SK)

Describes the composition and responsibilities of a reading committee designed to improve the reading achievement of all students within the school. (MG)

Examines nonsense-passage oral reading in adults. Finds that both affected and compensated-affected dyslexic subjects read the passages more slowly and with more errors than nondyslexic readers. Discusses results in relation to cognitive and neural processes. Finds nonsense-passage reading useful in family studies of inherited dyslexia. (RS)

Examines the contributions of rapid automatic naming, verbal ability, and phonological awareness to the prediction of phonological and orthographic skills from the first to the second grade. Illustrates how explicit computational models of reading can clarify relations among tasks commonly used in reading research. (SC)

Investigates metacognitive monitoring in the processing of anaphors in 10-year-old skilled and less-skilled comprehenders. Finds that less skilled comprehenders (1) showed deficiencies in monitoring on measures of implicit and explicit evaluation and revision; and (2) were sensitive to difficulties in processing pronouns in the self-evaluation…

Comments on development of literacy "benchmarks" by the Commonwealth Government. Suggests that the benchmarks (1) will prove a highly productive discursive (and thus financial) context for some researchers, assessment organizations, and professional development teams; and (2) are a product of the melodrama of crisis, having no foundation…

About 30% of U.S. students leave primary grades without basic reading competence and cannot fully profit from secondary education. A San Diego high school developed a multidimensional reading course that stresses building vocabulary through natural language and reading, reading at school and at home, listening to teachers read, practicing phonetic…

Analysis of data from 1,067 9- to 12-year olds indicated that the most important determinants of children's reading and math achievement are their personal characteristics (such as gender, race, birth weight, number of siblings) and maternal cognitive ability. Parental work does not have a strong direct effect on achievement. (SK)

Examines the relationship among first-language (L1) reading, second-language (L2) knowledge, and L2 reading for 88 beginners and 43 upper-level French students at the Air Force Academy. Demonstrates the importance of L1 reading and L2 knowledge to L2 reading comprehension. (RS)

Notes the author was a member of the Arizona Reading Achievement Task Force, established by state law to report on how to implement the "phonics law" passed the year before. Presents the minority report, which outlines some principles of achieving reading excellence and which was not included in the Task Force's report. Suggests keeping…

Focuses on the issue of convergent and predictive validity of measures using a broader range of orthographic tasks than previously examined. Finds that a measure of print exposure predicted variance in orthographic processing after the variance in phonological processing had been partialed out. (SG)

Educating parents through outreach and public library programs is essential if children are to be given a head start at reading. However, once they are enrolled in school, it is important that education staff use the resources at their disposal to expose children to a book-rich environment and have them engaged with books for the sheer fun of it.…