It is exciting to have a beautiful new science textbook--if students can read it! Unfortunately, many students can not read their science textbooks unassisted. This may be because students are reading below grade level, or because the material, like that of many science texts, has a readability one or more grade levels above the grade in which it…

This book examines the basic principles of the cognitive psychology of literacy and explains how insights gained from that theory can inform and improve reading, spelling, and writing instruction aimed at adults. The following are among the topics discussed in the book's eight chapters: the principles of cognitive psychology (the nervous system,…

A study investigated possible causes of high percentages of students failing the Ohio Ninth Grade Proficiency Test (ONGPT) in mathematics. The validity of the math test may be questionable. The reading and math scores of over 200 ninth-grade students from a rural school in northwest Ohio were used as a basis. Only scores from the fall of 1991,…

Proposing two major shifts in how to involve low readers more effectively in textbook learning, this book suggests that students, even those with low reading skills, can learn to use mainstream textbooks, and that textbooks can be designed to make them more usable for all students. The book presents a series of instructional techniques that…

As part of the Michigan Adult Education Inquiry Project III, five adult education practitioners from five metropolitan school districts researched the use of the Cloze procedure in determining the readability of the Michigan High School Proficiency Test for students in alternative or adult education. The Cloze is an assessment designed to take a…

"Postcards from America" is the publisher's name for a set of five high-interest low-level novellas written on a second-grade reading level and featuring a multicultural mix of adolescent characters (African-American, Mexican-American, Asian-American, and Caucasian). For recreational reading, the novellas in this set offer a mix of…

The reader is a component part of the only form of a text which can be discussed meaningfully as a message. As readers with different linguistic backgrounds experience texts in fusions with their own personalities and their own social and cultural backgrounds, these dynamic texts differ in different languages. Accordingly, intranslatability exists…

Ease of language processing varies with the nature of the language involved. Ordinary spoken language is the easiest kind to produce and understand, while writing is a relatively new development. On thoughtful inspection, the readability of writing has shown itself to be a complex topic requiring insights from many academic disciplines and…

Intended to illuminate current understanding of how the reader's cognition and language and the text's structure affect the processing of prose, this volume contains articles written by educators, linguists, psychologists, and artificial intelligence experts on issues of comprehension research. The first part of the book examines reading…

This guide to writing material that will be read by new readers focuses on making the material readable, relevant, and effective. The first section of the guide gives an overview of this process, and addresses the following aspects of writing for new readers: (1) determining the audience and its interests; (2) elements of effective written…

An instrument to assist in assessing textbooks was created to provide a concise format for comparison and evaluation. Textbook characteristics were selected to illustrate content and proportion of characteristics of textbooks. Nine textbook characteristics were selected for quantifying the content areas of textbooks: (1) number of pages in the…

This textbook evaluation instrument is provided to assess (1) content properties; (2) instructional properties; (3) physical properties; (4) readability; and (5) other properties such as cultural mix, organization of text, and suitability for various grade levels in secondary level world geography and global studies textbooks. For the first three…

To analyze the validity of W. L. Taylor's cloze testing methodology, this paper first examines three areas contributing to Taylor's thinking: communications theory, the psychology of speech and communication, and the theory of dispositional mechanisms--or nonessential words--in speech. It then evaluates Taylor's research to determine how he…

This article suggests the following ways of making material easier for adults to read: using layout and print size to make meaning clear; making audio recordings and simplified versions of printed matter; and increasing the relevance of the content to the reader. Intended for teachers of adults in reading programs, the study also contains a…

A project was undertaken at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) to involve business and industry representatives in defining minimal reading competencies for job entrance, retention and promotion. Project activities included the following: (1) a workshop entitled, "Business Speaks to Education," during which business education and reading…