Focusing on readability and interest factors of instructional materials for adult education, the study examined the possible relationships between performance and expressed interest in individual reading passages and in categories of passages. Passages on one of three levels of difficulty were administered to 180 adult education students from…

The purposes of this study were to identify the best predictor or predictors of paragraph comprehensibility and to attempt to interpret that predictor as a skill. Forty-two passages of differing readability (ranging from grade 2.5 to 10.0) were analyzed for within word, within sentence, and between sentence characteristics. The measures used for…

This book reviews the research in the field of typography as it affects children's books and sets it in the context of research on reading. The contents include five chapters: "Problems of Definition and Measurement" discusses the various measures of legibility used in research studies. "The Reading Process" examines three…

Air Force training depends to a considerable extent on the transmission of information through textual materials. This study was performed to define and clarify methods for increasing the capability of written materials to transfer information to the reader. Variables drawn from current psycholinguistic and intellective function literature were…

In a series of three experiments involving 104 individuals, the effect of chunking sentences (the spatial separation of sentences into small groups of meaningfully related words) upon the reading rate and comprehension of mature readers was investigated. Passages and questions from a standardized reading test were displayed via an…

This paper acquaints the classroom teacher and researcher with the cloze procedure as a multipurpose tool. The cloze procedure is discussed as a measurement, diagnostic, and instructional instrument. In particular, the advantages and disadvantages of the cloze procedure for each of these purposes are considered. Cloze passages, their construction,…

This study replicated and validated the Dolch basic sight vocabulary investigation. Dolch's method of compiling his list of 95 nouns was also replicated. Some discrepancies were found between the replication study and Dolch's investigations--a few words were left off the lists, although they apparently met all the criteria for inclusion, and a…

One can measure the readability of any piece of reading material for an individual or a group by having the selection read and then testing for comprehension. Increasingly the cloze procedure has come to be used in preference to multiple-choice questions. Other readability scales have been based on previously scaled passages, on carefully graded…

This monograph discusses the three chief interacting variables which affect the readability of a particular piece of material--format and organization, the reader, and the criterion used to estimate readability. Chapters include "The Concept of Readability," which provides a comprehensive view of readability, analyzes the purposes of…

This technical memorandum presents an outline of how to apply psycholinguistic and intellective concepts in order to enhance the readability and comprehensibility of written materials. Guidelines for making the reader's task easier are provided, and some readability measurement procedures are also discussed. The contents include: "Increasing…

The problems stated for this investigation were: (1) to determine the order of introduction of the common phoneme-grapheme correspondences needed for use in decoding of written words introduced in the elementary grades, and (2) to ascertain at what specific readability level a particular graphemic option occurred most frequently. A master word…

One of the problems found in present readability formulas is the lack of control for syntax, other than sentence length. Judging the complexity of a sentence based on word count alone does not allow for such circumstances as: coordinate clauses joined by "and"; deletions; passive forms; and coordinate clauses, dependent clauses, and…

The purpose of the report was to examine the readability of the Occupational Information Access System (OIAS) QUEST questionnaire and the validity of independent client use of the questionnaire as an information gathering device. Readability formulas rate the QUEST questionnaire "easy" or "fairly easy" and they rank the…

This study is concerned with the measurement of reading flexibility. The contents include: "Review of Literature," which discusses the different concepts of reading flexibility and presents several definitions followed by a summary of variables revealed in these definitions; "Synthesis of Strengths and Weaknesses," which looks…

This paper focuses on the relationship of verbal factors to mathematics achievement and reviews research from 1930 to the present. The effects of verbalization in the mathematics learning process are considered; mathematics functioning as a unique language in its own right is analyzed. Research on the readability of mathematics materials and…