A scale was developed and tested to measure metaphoric complexity in order to aid teachers in the selection and sequencing of young adult (YA) novels in the English curriculum. The development and testing of the scale involved two stages: (1) the development of a questionnaire to determine if differences in the metaphoric complexity of examples…

Summarizes 369 reports of reading research and divides them into six main areas: "Summaries of Specific Aspects of Reading Research", "Teacher Preparation and Practice,""Sociology of Reading, Physiology and Psychology of Reading,""The Teaching of Reading," and "Reading of Atypical Learners." (RB)

The 298 books annotated in this issue are arranged under six headings: nursery schools, infant schools, junior schools, secondary schools, adult literacy work, and apparatus, games, and kits. The books for school-age children are further subdivided into reading and language development, fiction, and nonfiction. Each entry contains a subjective…

This paper assesses the effectiveness of readability indices, standard cloze procedure, and the matching cloze procedure as determinants of the readability of supplementary English materials for elementary ESL students in a Pacific Island context. A review of readability indices and the standard cloze procedure indicated that neither procedure is…

The research focusing on students' comprehension of mathematical word problems can be viewed from the math educator's perspective, the reading educator's perspective, or a pedagogical perspective. Math educators emphasize the math aptitude of the learners, a view suggesting that students must possess certain understandings to succeed in…

This manual contains examples of techniques for science teachers to use in making the teaching of reading a simultaneous function of teaching science. The task force members of a three day work session with the Alaska Department of Education used science texts from their own programs to provide samples of various activities and guides. Each…

A study was conducted to examine plain language legislation in the 50 states and to evaluate the progress made in simplifying government regulations as a result of President Carter's executive order mandating the use of clear language in regulations. In the first part of the study, laws and bills relating to plain language in consumer contracts…

Content area teachers should be aware of the five levels of vocabulary with which their students must cope. The five levels include standard words at the least complex level, transitional terms that have different meanings in the content area than in standard usage, technical terms specific to the subject area, changeable terms (similar to…

The Fry Readability Formula was used to determine the readability levels of 12 first and second grade basal texts. These texts were part of the Ginn 360, Ginn 720, and Macmillan Series "r" basal reader series. The results showed that 4 of the 12 books tested did not correspond closely to the publisher's readability levels. The Ginn 720 text for…

Modeling the process of communication through fictive constructions of audience is as much a part of teaching writing as is imparting rules for grammar and organization. A historical review of rhetorical theory and the goals of writing instruction delineates the shift away from traditional, fuzzy conceptions of audience to more carefully…

This document is the third volume in a set of five Career Education Measurement Handbooks intended to help local education personnel in measurement and evaluation. Divided into seven major sections, this handbook is designed to provide practical guidelines for improving career education instruments developed at the local level. It is primarily…

After 104 high and low ability ninth grade students read prose passages, they wrote all that they remembered about the passage, exhibiting how text features affected text recall. The materials varied in length, the number of propositions presented, and whether headings were used to organize the passage. Only one of the two sets of directions used…

Research from several disciplines has been examined to create this literature review of information on document design, the overall movement toward producing public documents that the intended users can understand. Six chapters review appropriate research from the areas of psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, instructional research,…

Four activities of the Document Design Project (DDP) in its first year of operation are described in this report. The activities described are: (1) dissemination of information about the project; (2) creation of information services, including a library of more than 450 items; (3) development of a three-day course on document simplification, which…