Examines fifth grade students' metacognitive response to ambiguous literacy tasks and explores the relationship between that response and academic achievement. Finds that a relationship exists between the depth and functionality dimensions: the greater the depth of metacognitive plans, the more likely they are to lead to academic success. (MG)

A major problem facing schools is lack of curricular differentiation and academic challenge for the most academically able students. Also, contemporary textbooks have been "dumbed down." Curriculum compacting is a flexible, research-based technique enabling high-ability students to skip work they already know and substitute more…

Summarizes educators' and researchers' concerns regarding the use and misuse of standardized reading tests. Suggests a different model for reading assessment. (RS)

Standard reading test scores were gathered from 2,500 British students at ages 6 and 8. School and pupil variables sieved with multilevel modeling were used to develop a measure of school effectiveness that ranked schools substantially differently than the raw scores. The measure may be a fairer comparison of school effectiveness. (SK)

Maintains that a fresh perspective is needed on secondary reading assessment. Discusses several factors that should be, but are not, included in secondary reading assessment, and describes barriers to advances in such assessment. (SR)

A study explored the impact of a regular, sustained self-selected reading program on four reading skills measured by a criterion-referenced reading skill test. Fourth graders received reading only, reading/skill instruction, or skill instruction only. Results indicated significant pre- to posttest growth for all groups for all the reading…

Discusses how the visual system operates as an avenue for learning through the intermeshing of its three systems: sensory, motor, and central processing. States that the evaluation of all three systems is vital to the diagnosis of and prescription for poor readers. (MG)

This study of 508 Israeli kindergarten children learning to read Hebrew found that phonemic segmentation skills and reading acquisition are highly interrelated. Learning to read was the main factor accounting for the sharp increase in phonological awareness between six and seven years of age, and reading acquisition was facilitated by prior…

Compares reading achievement of at-risk primary-school students participating in a systematic, sequential, multisensory, synthetic, phonetically based approach to reading (Project Read) to reading achievement of students instructed through the use of traditional basal readers. Finds significant differences at first grade for all subtests and the…

Measures native skilled, nonnative skilled, and nonnative nonskilled English readers' word reading times. Finds reading times of native skilled readers were independent of word length, word location, and grammatical word classification compared to nonnative readers. Finds that native readers' reading time was different from nonnative skilled…

Investigated alternative reading monitoring measures in addition to time-consuming oral reading fluency assessment. Examined measures suitable for automatic data collection and scoring using computers and acceptable as measures of reading comprehension. Assessed criterion validity of four such measures and identified subset of measures. (Author/NB)

Investigates the relationship between the reading comprehension and information processing strategies of fluent oral readers of Oriya (a language spoken in India) orthography. Notes that Oriya has some significant differences from English orthography. Finds that good comprehenders were relatively more intelligent that the poor comprehenders and…

Fits spelling data from identical and fraternal twins to a basic multiple regression model. Finds that about 60% of the deficit of probands was due to heritable influences. Finds a nonsignificant sex difference. Suggests collaborative analyses of data from additional twin studies of reading disability to facilitate more rigorous tests. (RS)

Investigates first graders' self-esteem after receiving remedial reading instruction in the Reading Recovery program. Finds that 78% to 96% of the students responded positively to each statement on a self-esteem questionnaire. Notes that variability of responses suggests the students were discriminating among items. (RS)

The criticisms of the reading literacy study conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) are addressed. It is argued that the IEA literacy survey met requirements for valid international comparisons, and that its rank order of nations is fair. (SLD)