A study determined whether reading aloud to children before entering school would influence their reading grade level as determined by their report card grade. Subjects, 85 first-grade children in a suburban school district in central New Jersey, took surveys home to be completed by parents. Results indicated that: (1) those children who were read…

A review of research on the effects of whole language suggests that no one approach to teaching reading is distinctly better in all situations and respects than other methods. The whole language approach has been described as a "top-down" theory of reading which emphasizes the importance of teaching language as a whole entity as…

The act of reading is holistic and involves acquisition of facts, concepts, and generalizations. With Instructional Management Systems (IMS) and state mandated testing, however, reading too frequently becomes a means of appraising the achievement of students in acquiring word recognition skills as well as diverse comprehension abilities. School…

A study examined whether preschool attendance has a positive effect on reading achievement of third graders. Subjects were 40 students attending third grade at the Benjamin Wright Raymond Public School (100% minority students), located in a mostly low socioeconomic neighborhood in the Chicago, Illinois area. Half of the subjects had attended…

A study determined whether computer assisted instruction (CAI) had an effect on students' reading achievement. Subjects were 21 randomly selected fourth-grade students at D. S. Wentworth Elementary School on the south side of Chicago in a low-income neighborhood who received a year's exposure to a CAI program, and 21 randomly selected students at…

A study examined the degree to which audiotaped progressive muscle relaxation training influenced the oral and silent reading performance of eight adolescents who were legally classified as emotionally disturbed. A single-case ABAB withdrawal design was used to examine the effects of relaxation training on oral reading. In addition, a…

Children from open and traditional classrooms were matched for IQ, sex, age, grade and then administered reading and creativity tests. Results showed the high IQ, traditional students had high reading and creativity scores. (DEP)

Describes a reading program which builds on the child's verbal skills. (RB)

Intended to serve as a resource for the many and varied groups concerned with improving students' reading proficiencies, this report from the Nation's Report Card provides a long-term perspective on students' reading skills and strategies based on a series of five national assessments conducted from 1971 to 1988. Each chapter of the report…

A pervasive finding from research on teaching and classroom learning is that a low rate of error on classroom tasks is associated with large year to year gains in achievement, particularly for reading in the primary grades. The finding of a negative relationship between error rate, especially rate of oral reading errors, and gains in reading…

A study was conducted to assess the effect on reading achievement of changing the length of the kindergarten day. Mean scores of 148 children attending half-day kindergarten were compared to mean scores of 96 children attending all-day kindergarten. Four full-day experimental groups and four half-day control groups were selected, and their…

A program of paired, repeated reading was developed to improve the achievement in reading comprehension of 14 targeted third-grade students. The program had three basic objectives: (1) to increase literal comprehension by 25%; (2) to increase inference of main idea by 25%; and (3) to increase inference skills of drawing conclusions by 25%. The…

In a review of research on computer assisted instruction (CAI) related to reading, evidence collected provides tentative conclusions about CAI effectiveness. CAI was effective as an instructional medium in the surveyed studies. In a number of instances, CAI groups achieved higher scores than the control groups. Some studies indicated that CAI…

A study investigated the nature and extent of adult illiteracy and the characteristics of the less literate populations in Philadelphia. Data were collected through 2,197 telephone interviews and 607 personal interviews. The personal interviews involved use of a modified version of the instrument developed by the National Assessment of Educational…

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…