Reports on the development of a computer program that was used with five different readability formulas to assess levels of reading difficulty. (FL)

The Flesch reading formula is questioned as being appropriate for evaluating college economics textbooks. The Dale-Chall, Modified Dale-Chall, Fry, and Flesch formulas were used to evaluate nine introductory textbooks. There was little or no consistency in either the absolute reading levels or the rank orderings. (Author/AM)

This survey of 11 recently published biology textbooks includes an analysis of content, certain general characteristics, readability, and use of questions. Differences between these and earlier textbooks are noted. The reading difficulty of the new books is found to be less than for those covered in a previous survey. (Author/JN)

Evaluates the practicability of the Singer Eyeball Estimate of Readability (SEER) techniques with 32 college students. Reveals that only two of the students met SEER's criterion for being considered acceptable judges. Concludes that the criterion is overly stringent and proposes a revised criterion designed to make the SEER technique more…

Fourteen high school physics textbooks are evaluated. Criteria include content, distribution/organization of content, level (appropriateness of presentation for high school students), readability, appearance, presentation of physics as a growing body of knowledge, awareness of social problems, and adequacy of materials for additional work by…

Examines the variables experienced teachers of deaf children use to make decisions about the difficulty of a text for use by their students and how effective teacher judgment actually is in determining text difficulty. (EKN)

Concludes that the maze procedure tended to overestimate students' ability to cope with an unfamiliar text, while the cloze procedure appeared to be a reasonably accurate measure. (FL)

The authors question the furor over declining reading scores, since their study of the daily reading materials of white collar, skilled labor, unskilled labor, and retail personnel indicated little need for these job holders to function at more than a sixth-grade reading level. (Editor/SJL)

Since there appears to be a direct relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary, an inventory is offered which assesses students' knowledge of the meaning of "combining forms" (automobile, aero-dynamics, etc.) and not words themselves. The inventory can serve as a model to develop additional inventories for Latin/Greek roots.…

Outlines three constructs of text difficulty: text-based (objective), performance-based (behavioral), and a combination of the two (subjective). (HOD)

Comments on the rationale and methodology of the textual cue experiments of L. T. Frase and B. J. Schwartz (see EJ 203 980) and describes two studies that attempted to replicate and extend their findings using a different methodology. (Author/GT)

Pictorial contents of biology textbooks are examined as factors to be considered in assessing textbook readability. Includes data indicating that effect of color upon the observations and interpretations of photographs varies with the child's ability. Implications for textbook selection procedures are discussed. (CS)

To support the view of readability as an interaction between a text and the reader's prose-processing capabilities, this article applies an extended and formalized version of the Kintch and van Dijk prose-processing model to 20 texts of varying readability. (Author/GSK)

All of the measures require greater reading capability than tests like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory that are designed for use with diverse clinical populations. Unfortunately, some important measures based on promising social-learning conceptualizations of marital conflict were among the more difficult. (Author)

Reviews ERIC documents concerned with the use of comic books in the classroom. (FL)