Presents results of a cross-sectional study of a sample of Year 2 children in reading. Finds an improvement in the attainment level of children in 1992 compared to 1991. Concludes that there is a need to view apparently rising standards in England, as measured solely by the Standard Assessment Task results, with a degree of caution. (PA)

Reviews the history of children's fiction series publishing, examines the childhood reading histories of adult readers who currently read for pleasure, and investigates the reading of series books as an essential stage in the reading development. Also discusses the need for public libraries to be aware of different patron reading levels. (contains…

Examined the language skills of 21 6-year olds selected for linguistic precocity as toddlers, finding that verbal abilities and reading achievement remained high from age 2 through 6. Also found that phonological awareness appeared to emerge as a consequence, rather than a cause, of early reading. (31 references) (MDM)

Examined effects of exposure to print and interaction with a more knowledgeable adult partner on 56 kindergarten children's environmental print knowledge. Results suggest that exposure and functional experiences with adults in print-enriched play settings may offer an important opportunity for young children to associate meaning with print. (WP)

Survey finds: (1) recreational and academic reading attitudes became gradually more negative over the elementary school years and were steepest for least able readers; (2) girls possessed more favorable attitudes than boys; (3) ethnicity played little role; and (4) extent of teacher's reliance on basal readers was not a factor. Suggests that…

Presents results of a study of 11-year-old children's learning mode preferences, reading attainment, and cognitive ability. Reports that holistic thinkers preferred modes corresponding to their verbal imagery style, whereas analytic thinkers were divided across the verbal imagery dimension. Predicts highest achievement for wholist verbalizers and…

Describes a German longitudinal study of the relationship among verbal ability, memory capacity, phonological awareness, and reading performance. Reports that the relationship between memory capacity and phonological awareness remained stable over time. Concludes that memory capacity predicted phonological awareness task performance, phonological…

Four simple line-fitting procedures are presented for practitioners to summarize student time series performance data quickly: (1) Koenig's quarter-intersect procedure; (2) White's split-middle adjustment; (3) the Tukey I procedure; and (4) the Tukey II procedure. Data from 45 elementary school students in grades 4 and 5 are presented. (SLD)

Examines the effect of teaching at-risk first graders paraphrasing and self-verbalization techniques to enhance metacognitive awareness of reading strategies. Finds that treatment groups performed at statistically higher levels than the control group. (RS)

Examines differences in reading habits of developmental college students with varying levels of reading proficiency. Finds that subjects spent an unusually low amount of time on academic reading and even less time on nonacademic reading. Finds no significant differences between high- and low-proficient readers with regard to amount of time spent…

Finds that differences in parent and teacher ratings of low ability readers were more pronounced than the differences for high ability readers. Shows that parents of low readers viewed their children as more adaptable, approachable, and persistent than their teachers, whereas both parents and teachers viewed low readers as distractible. (SR)

Reviews the Educational Testing Service's five most recent "State of Achievement" reports on the quality of non-higher education. The value of these reports is questionable, because their bias seems negative and their standards too perfectionist. Apparent poor results for U.S. children, compared with children of other nations, may arise…

Presents an alternative performance-based assessment of reading comprehension and readability called the "Opin" procedure, a macroclosure procedure in which sentence endings instead of single words are deleted. Notes that readers' responses are rated on a continuum from low to high proximity with the author's intentions. (RS)

Relationships among low-level reading skills, sentence verification, and error detection were studied using 91 fourth graders. Error detection was best predicted by subjects' tendency to generate inferences while reading. Literal text comprehension depended on low-level reading; strategic reading competence reflected a tendency to go beyond…

Links between reading and short memory span, slow naming time, and slow speech rate were investigated for 140 fifth and sixth grade students given a reading test and tests of the 3 variables. Reading was best predicted by naming time, followed by speech rate; prediction from memory span was weak. (SLD)