Provides readability levels for Newbery award winning books commonly read by elementary and secondary students. (RB)

Describes a tactile technique that draws letters on the skin as an approach to teaching children to begin reading and writing. Describes the development and use of a letter machine with normal beginning readers and dyslexic children. (GS)

Preliminary findings are consistent with the view that less experienced readers transform graphic to aural input before deriving a semantic interpretation. (RB)

Concludes that in reading words the understanding of meaning and the knowledge of probable letter sequences has a function at least as significant as familiarity with letter shapes. (RB)

Research shows that teachers prefer to teach the better readers, despite the fact that most teachers say they show no favoritism. (RB)

Reports on a study comparing the nouns in the Dolch word list with four recently published word lists to determine which nouns are most frequently used. (RB)

Findings show that a significant majority of inner city teachers believe the DISTAR is an effective reading program. (RB)

Supports the practice of requiring two readings of developmental reading lessons when using the Informal Reading Inventory to determine reading ability. (RB)

Concludes that a large number of student teachers and experienced teachers at the elementary level cannot define the concepts and terms they are teaching. (RB)

A study (replicating a similar 1977 study by S. Stotsky), examined whether current basal series teach prefixion clearly. Teacher's guides, student texts, and workbooks of nine popular basal reader series were examined to ascertain whether they offered a clear definition of the term "prefix" and whether that definition was reinforced by…

A study investigated the use of visualizing in remembering or understanding difficult abstract prose. Subjects, 40 students in two freshman developmental reading classes in a state college in North Carolina, received either instruction in drawing out images or in writing paraphrases as they read difficult material. Posttests of abstract reading…

A study tested the hypothesis that the time it takes for information to be analyzed by the reader is sometimes delayed because concurrent comprehension processes are still occupied with analyzing previous information (the variable utilization time hypothesis). During fixations (when the eye rests during reading), visual information, at some point,…

Identifying effective reading instruction through "process-product" research narrowly focuses attention on immediate practice and desirable outcomes as measured by tests. Failure to conduct long-term research and make instructional decisions within a historical context may discourage discovering new and innovative ways to teach reading.…

This study investigated the effects of background television on cognitive performance as it applies to reading comprehension and memory using G. B. Armstrong and B. S. Greenberg's (1990) model. Subjects, 95 undergraduates from lower-level communication courses, completed a cued-recall test of the content of an expository prose passage read under…

This report reviews the research on text-based interest, defined as those elements within texts that create interest for the majority of readers. Three issues are covered: (1) what kinds of information are considered interesting, both theoretically and empirically; (2) what effects popular strategies for creating interest have on learning…