Intended for students taking the Grade 12 Diploma Examination in English 33 in Alberta, Canada, this test on writing contains general instructions and three sections: (1) a personal response to literature, which requires a response about some aspect of literature; (2) functional writing, which requires a written response within a given situation…

This paper discusses the role of intelligence in language comprehension. In the study reported, an attempt is made to determine how much of the variability in English reading scores of non-native speakers of English can be predicted on the basis of intelligence alone. In the study, three measures of reading comprehension are used: a traditional…

A study investigated whether syntactic differences between oral and written discourse interfere with the comprehension of beginning readers. Subjects were 28 second grade and 28 fifth grade students who read, orally, versions of stories identical in nature except for the structure of their syntactic patterns. One version contained structures more…

A major concern for those in higher education is whether the instruments they use for screening students are valid and predictive. Of particular interest is whether a grammar test, used in many institutions to screen students for developmental English, and a reading comprehension test, used to screen students for developmental reading, truly…

This monograph is one in a series of semiannual reports on research related to reading in secondary schools. The six papers in the monograph deal with the following topics: (1) the effect of reading level on the retention of propositions by secondary school remedial reading students; (2) the ambiguity of the term "significance" in research, which…

Two text-based prose grammars, the W. Kintsch and B. J. F. Meyer models, were compared as to their sensitivity to potential developmental differences in children's recall of prose. Participants in the study were 212 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students who had been classified as average or below average in reading ability. The Meyer analysis…

Using Jean Piaget's theory of thinking as a structuring mechanism, this paper presents a theoretical framework for the development of remedial, corrective, and developmental reading programs geared toward teaching reading comprehension. The four stages of intellectual development that Piaget has proposed (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete…

The third-party evaluation of the second year of the Iowa Central Community College Experience Based Career Education (EBCE) Project was based on examination of project records, interviews with project staff, student and resource persons, questionnaires completed by students, parents and resource persons, and test data collected on students at the…

This paper reviews some of the strategies the receiver uses in the process of comprehending a message in a foreign language and discusses some of the ways in which the listener/reader goes beyond the actual physical form of the message during this process. The role of guessing is discussed in the context of the following theories: the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 11 titles deal with the following topics: models for reading instruction for disabled readers based on humanistic education principles; the effects of levels and positions of questions on the comprehension and reading time of…

Results of a survey using a criterion referenced test of reading comprehension for a large sample of sixth and eleventh grade students throughout Texas are reported in detail. Details of the sampling design and of the test development are reported elsewhere. Results are reported in terms of the percent of students correctly answering three out of…

A Spanish language workbook built around the theme of living together is presented here. It contains two units, "Companerismo" and "Cualidades humanizantes," and a total of five lessons. Lessons one and two of Unit One, "Ayudemonos" and "Mi amigo, mi hermano" present a passage for reading comprehension, various types of comprehension exercises…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles deal with the following topics: remedial reading teacher attitudes, how parent training in behavior modification and transactional analysis affects remedial reading instruction, the effect of role change on the reading…

The technology of transforming sentences from prose instruction into test questions was examined by comparing two methods of selecting sentences (keyword vs. rare singleton), two types of question words (nouns vs. adjectives), and two foil construction methods (writer's choice vs. algorithmic). Four item writers created items using each…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 11 titles deal with the following topics: a mature reader's use of consciously employed strategies to facilitate comprehension; contextual and acontextual approaches to teaching vocabulary to adult students; methods for teaching…