Noting that four of the six most common readability formulas use the McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading as the independent criterion of difficulty to establish validity, while the other two often site their correlation with the first four to determine validity, a study examined whether these lessons consisted of passage selections…

Noting that educators can help students have the positive experiences necessary to foster interest and growth in reading skills by guiding them toward the selection of library books at appropriate reading levels, this bibliography provides citations of high quality books for which a readability grade level has been determined using the Fry…

Principals who make the decision and investment to produce a school newsletter should follow these guidelines to obtain an informative and attractive product. The first step is to define the purpose of the newsletter, then determine the target audience--probably parents--and write the newsletter with them in mind. Next, decide what the newsletter…

Research on schema theory and the psycholinguistic perspectives of reading suggest that the measures of readability currently used on second language tests be reconsidered. Because foreign language readers, especially in the early stages of language learning, often do not have the necessary schema or background knowledge, teachers should include…

Designed as a resource for reading teachers who are attempting to enhance their students' fundamental reading skills and to permit the more rigorous determination of readability levels for both instructional materials and testing devices, this word list provides a grade-by-grade set of key words students need to master for grades 1 through 12 The…

Most teachers of mathematics would agree that a student's major difficulty when studying mathematics is the mastery of "vocabulary." A taxonomy could provide an outline of the various types of vocabulary and could suggest their relative interrelationships. One proposed taxonomy has five levels that seem to recur. The levels seem to have…

The accomplishments of a team of writers, designers, and education specialists commissioned by the National Institute of Education (NIE) to suggest solutions to the problems that public documents often pose for readers are summarized in this report. Following an overview, the report offers a section on the history and rationale of the Document…

Drawing from the conclusions of research studies by linguists and psychologists, this paper describes four classes of principles for constructing readable prose for both print materials and computer screens: (1) global principles dealing with a schema-theory approach to discourse type, with topical focus, and with parallelism; (2) sentence-level…

Six articles used in previous research (P. A. Goldberg, 1968) into perceived professional competence of women were compared on three different indices of readability. Results indicated that the articles differ in reading ease, writing style, and grade level. This lack of equivalence is posed as a possible explanation of conflicting results that…

This textbook is the second book in part of a series of readers made for silent reading. A distinctive feature of this reader is the unique provision made for silent reading. The stories have been selected for their child-interest and wholesome ethical content. This book is based on the belief that what the child needs when they have gained…

Two experimental designs were used to test the hypothesis that abbreviations in classified advertisements decrease the reader's comprehension of such ads. In the first experimental design, 73 high school students read four ads (for employment, used cars, apartments for rent, and articles for sale) either with abbreviations or with all…

Traditional surveys of children's literature have examined features such as text structure and topic, but have failed to take into account rhetorical elements such as author/reader distance, commentary, point of view, and inside view (insight into characters' minds). Similarly, they have glossed over aspects of character to character interaction,…

Reading problems related to use of primary source materials in the upper elementary grades are investigated. A major focus was the appropriateness of original versus rewritten versions of primary source materials with respect to readability. The sample consisted of 209 fifth and sixth grade students and seven elementary school classroom teachers…