The effect of the interaction between imagery level and number of semantic propositions on junior high readers at three ability levels was studied, using an instrument that compared two levels of imagery at each of five levels of semantic propositions. Syntax, word frequency, and number of arguments were held constant. The results indicated that…

Two brief studies on community college social science textbook readability are compiled in this document. The first study compared textbook readability in 1977 to the findings of previous research. When the readability levels of community college social science textbooks were compared with the reading levels of the community college population in…

This study investigated the effect of embedded parts (intervening words between the main subject and verb of a sentence) on young readers' abilities to comprehend when the embedded parts do not present a significant change in sentence structure. Two schools in Bemidji, Minnesota, were selected for the study: school one is located in a low…

The purpose of this study was to determine practices of methods that secondary school history teachers could use to help their students master special skills needed for effectively reading and comprehending printed materials in their classes. Since a range of eighth grade levels of reading achievement may be presented in a history class which uses…

A study was conducted to compare the reading levels of beginning students in a two-year community college with the readability levels of the materials they are required to read in selected courses. Subjects, all the students enrolled at an open door community college in Tampa (Florida), took the Nelson-Denny Reading test. Readability levels of…

The purposes of this study were to determine if cloze tests would yield reading instruction levels identical to those obtained with an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) and if there would be discrepancies in the reading levels yielded by the two instruments for subjects from a lower socioeconomic level. The investigator, with the assistance of one…

Part 1 of this report reviewed the three week teacher-training institute held at the University of Delaware during July and August 1971. Part 2 reviews some of the followup strategies used and demonstrated throughout Federal Region 3 over the past year (July 1971 to July 1972). Two model teaching demonstrations were developed and used throughout…

This study proposes the use of the readability analysis as an evaluative model of programing techniques where program adaptations can be evaluated both in relationship to student performance and to the program structure (frame, response, content presentation, and organization variables). A computerized means of determining reading difficulty to…

This study related the style of writing found in literature for children and the relative level of readability of this material. Cloze tests of readability on 10 passages from five juvenile biographies of Lincoln were given in 1 week to a hemogeneously grouped upper elementary school reading class (n=28) in suburban Detroit. The mean T-unit…

Procedures and findings of three reading comprehension studies are reported. The first study compared cloze readability test scores for 130 pairs of students (grade 3 through college) with scores indicating the information gained from reading. Students gained little or no information when they could not answer more than 25 percent of the cloze…

Every year the purchase of unsuitable books for disadvantaged children wastes millions of dollars. The use of these unsuitable books results in extensive reading failure. In order to overcome this waste of money and human resources, book committees need to employ standards and methods of evaluation to identify books appropriate for disadvantaged…

The cloze technique was used to investigate differences among subjects at different levels of reading difficulty and differences between levels of readability. In addition, differences among lexical, structural, and nth deletion cloze responses were studied. It was hypothesized that an interaction exists between type of deletion and levels of…

This study examined the adaptability of reading rate to passage difficulty under different conditions of task-induced processing. Sixteen experimental passages varying in subject matter and ranging from 85 to 171 words were selected from a set of 32 texts rated for comprehensibility. The eight easiest and eight hardest texts were selected. Another…

A standardized method, called programed prose, has been developed which can be used to automatically convert prose training material into a form which forces trainees to read the material with at least a minimal level of comprehension. From the results of a series of experimental studies, it was concluded that programed prose facilitates learning…

It was the purpose of this study to determine the readability level of all social studies textbooks authorized for purchase in the adoption made by the Textbook Commission of the Indiana State Board of Education on December 12, 1968 for five years beginning July 1, 1969. A thorough search of the literature and research did not reveal that their…