Based on John Rawls' theory of justice as fairness, a nine-item rating scale was developed to serve as a criterion in studies of test item bias. Two principles underlie the scale: (1) Within a defined usage, test items should not affect students so that they are unable to do as well as their abilities would indicate; and (2) within the domain of a…

A comparison of test results on the Visual Discrimination Test was made between a group of 22 reading disabled children and 22 children who were reading on or above grade level. Both groups were of average or above-average intelligence and the two groups were matched for age and sex. The mean age was 10 years and 3 months and all the reading…

In the fall of 1975, students scoring at the 77th percentile and above on the ITBS were brought together with selected teachers in two magnet schools and four vanguard schools. The present report presents a comparison of the fall-to-spring achievement of the groups and the opinions of principals, teachers, and parents. Also provided is the…

This report describes several prominent reading comprehension programs for use in grades three through eight and discusses some research studies on these programs effectiveness in terms of student achievement. Three basal reading series are compared and descriptions are given of the DISTAR reading and language programs, objective-based reading…

This study was designed to determine the effects of two teacher responses on rate of oral reading. The teacher responses were the simple response of correcting a mispronounced word and the response of praise contingent on correct reading while ignoring all errors. The subjects were four boys ranging in age from nine to twelve from a residential…

The major purpose of this study was to ascertain the relative effectiveness of the classroom discussion approach and the tutorial approach in using literature for the development of ego identity among adolescents of high, average, and low reading achievement levels. The sample consisted of 184 ninth and tenth grade students enrolled in a northern…

The purpose of this study was to identify promising instructional techniques for promoting improvement in the reading skills of students classified as "disadvantaged" in both the English and mathematics classrooms. Residual gain scores were computed in both English and mathematics for each of 165 students, and mean gain scores of classrooms were…

This document examines the data on changes in the ethnic composition of the schools in Milwaukee, and relates them to student achievement. A consideration of the relationship of ethnicity and academic achievement is said to entail six questions as follows: how ethnic proportions of pupils have changed over a ten-year period; their patterns of…

The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of kindergarten readers with those of children who entered kindergarten but could not read. One hundred thirty children were identified as readers and 130 children were randomly selected from each of the readiness and non-readiness groups in the Madison, Wisconsin public schools. A…

This study examined the revised Goodman taxonomy, the Oral Reading Miscues Inventory, as a means of evaluating reading achievement. A sample of 128 second-grade students was tested with a standardized reading test, the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, to determine their current reading achievement levels. Causal conversation was recorded on tape for…

Three groups of twenty-five children in fourth-grade reading classes were selected for this study. The subjects in class one received plastic tokens for desirable reading responses. The tokens were exchanged for release time from the classroom while reading instruction was in progress. The subjects in class two also received tokens for desirable…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the value of familiarizing third grade teachers with specific reading skills and to describe the effects of their using the word-attack element of the Wisconsin Design for Reading Skills Development (WDRSD) as an instructional management system for improving the achievements in reading…

The problem of this psychometric investigation was developed as four major areas for study: (1) a comprehensive processing model was designed and tested; (2) prediction of academic achievement, including group-administered versus individually-administered instruments, was investigated; (3) memory processes relative to schools and achievement…

The purposes of this study were to analyze the pronunciation of pupils and teachers to determine the deviation from the expected pronunciation for each group, and to determine the influence of dialect on reading performance of pupils. A random sample of 20 first grade pupils and 20 elementary teachers from four small, rural, all-white elementary…

A high correlation between on-line rate of progress and student achievement on a standardized test was found for a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) program in initial reading. In most cases, CAI measures of progress were better indications of spring test performance than was the pretest given in the fall. Rates of progress in the parts or…