This is an abridged, summary report of selected findings from "Pieces of the Puzzle: Factors in the Improvement of Urban School Districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress"--a comprehensive study prepared by the Council of the Great City Schools in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and with…

"The Electric Company" ("TEC") television show won the hearts of children because it made learning fun. Thirty years later, the iconic show has returned with the goal of not only teaching literacy, but also numeracy (the ability to work with and understand numbers) and mathematics vocabulary in a fun, entertaining, and engaging…

A study determined the effect of parental involvement on reading achievement of participating students. Subjects were 22 fifth-grade students in a Chicago public school who received parental involvement and 19 students in the same school who did not receive parental involvement. Subjects' scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills were used in the…

Through the leadership of the Mississippi Board of Education, the Mississippi Department of Education conducted two separate studies of the reading programs offered in the state. The first study examined statewide trends in reading achievement and compared selected school districts' data with data from the National Assessment of Educational…

A study examined the relationship among temporal processing, phonological processing, and reading skill using a multivariate approach which included measures of phonological processing and a variety of timing tasks that have been implicated in timing theories. Subjects were 30 adults classified as disabled readers based on their performance on the…

A study determined the effectiveness of the "Direct Instruction" program on the reading achievement of sixth-grade students. "Direct Instruction," known as "Distar" in the 1960s, is a phonic-based method that uses scripted lesson plans engaging students to learn by memory and classroom responses. Subjects were 30…

The technical education student must become a proficient reader so that optimal achievement is possible in the work place. Technical education instructors must be certain that students have mastered the basics in becoming good readers. Students need to be able to read directions accurately and understand the contents. Informal approaches to…

This report describes student performance in third grade Reading Comprehension and fourth grade Reading and Writing from the spring 1998 administration of the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP). In this second administration of CSAP, all third and fourth grade students in Colorado were accounted for. The report provides policymakers,…

To help teachers, policy analysts, and others understand the 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Assessment in Reading, this journal issue presents the objectives and examples of how students in grades 4, 8, and 12 will be assessed. The issue discusses NAEP's view of reading; key features of the assessment; reading purposes;…

A study investigated the attitudes toward reading of Western Kansas students in grades 1-6. Of the 156 students in the sample, 45 participated in the study group while 111 constituted the control group. The independent variables were participation status, achievement in reading, gender, socioeconomic class status, intelligence test scores, and…

This pamphlet provides current information about the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading. In addition to describing the purpose and goals of the NAEP, the pamphlet discusses the reasons for assessing reading, the 1992 NAEP in Reading (including recent changes), the guidelines used to create a framework for reading…

Article presented a number of definitions of reading with the advantages and disadvantages of reading taxonomies. (RK)

Concludes that speed in identifying letters and graphonemes correlates highly with reading achievement. (RB)

Concludes that teachers need to be aware of the side effects before administering cloze test procedures to college students. (RB)