A PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAM IN BEGINNING READING WAS ESTABLISHED FOR MEXICAN-AMERICAN CHILDREN IN AN EAST LOS ANGELES SCHOOL. THE PROGRAM WAS DESIGNED TO DEVELOP ORAL LANGUAGE SKILLS AND TO REINFORCE TRADITIONAL CULTURAL VALUES IN THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY. BASELINE DATA WERE OBTAINED ON BOTH READING ACHIEVEMENT AND ORAL LANGUAGE…

This paper focuses on three topics. The first introduces the original Anchor Test Study conducted and reported by Educational Testing Service (ETS) from 1971 to 1974. This study, involving the testing of more than 300,000 children, produced raw score equivalency tables for eight commonly used reading tests and new individual and school-mean norms…

The Reading Improvement Through Teacher Education (RITE) project provided in-service training in reading instruction to elementary school teachers, and helped principals and reading coordinators to organize their school reading programs. The project's intended mode of operation was fully implemented. RITE specialists provided service contacts to…

This report presents a summary of data and information compiled from projects for educationally deprived children in the state of Montana funded by Title I, Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Achievement data is presented for reading and mathematics. An analysis of pre- and post-test data indicates that students in the reading programs made…

This handbook is designed to give background information on the Mini-Assessment of Functional Literacy, a criterion-referenced test designed to determine the extent of functional literacy among seventeen year olds in America. The five format categories identified for the test were passages; drawings, pictures, signs, etc.; charts, maps, graphs;…

The purpose of this practicum was to implement and evaluate a peer tutoring program designed to raise the reading level of a selected group of low-achieving students at Harry Stone Middle School, an all-black, sixth- and seventh-grade school in the Dallas, Texas, Independent School District. Objectives were twofold: to raise the grade-equivalent…

Of the 47,000 bilingual pupils enrolled in the Chicago public schools, 39,000 were Spanish speaking. Many of these Spanish speaking students were in special bilingual programs. The success of one of these bilingual programs was evaluated by comparing two groups of Mexican American elementary pupils in the same school. One group was comprised of 14…

Reviews studies which demonstrate that exposure to children's literature encourages verbal language development and reading competence in particular. (TJ)

Compares word-attack and comprehension skill mastery of 65 native Spanish-speaking upper elementary students in a bilingual English/Spanish program and 55 native Spanish-speaking students of the same grade levels in an English monolingual program. There was no significant difference in the word-attack skills of the two groups but the bilingual…

Describes a study indicating statistically significant differences between the two groups of intellectually superior four- and five-year-olds in the areas of story recall and print awareness, and that the accelerated readers of this age group tend to have mothers who have deliberately provided their children with reading instruction. (HTH)

Four experiments examined the spelling capability of students in grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and college. Results suggested that reading unit size increases with age and reading ability. Younger children, like adults, unitize common words, and unitization of less common words increases as word configurations become more familiar. (RWB)

Evaluates an individualized reading program in which elementary school teachers prepared written prescriptions for students, targeting specific deficiencies for remediation. Finds that among students, preferences for independent modes of learning are significant predictors of positive reading attitudes. (MM)

This discussion of assessing students' reading abilities focuses on the need for developing better tests and better interpretation of test scores. Criterion-referenced tests versus norm-referenced tests are described, highlighting the Degrees of Reading Power and Metropolitan Achievement Tests: Reading, and the need for assessing the reading…

Based on response categories of the Classroom Activity Recording Form, instructional behaviors of 30 teachers of mildly retarded and learning disabled elementary students (N=122) were used to predict reading achievement gain on the California Achievement Test. Time spent in teacher questioning was the single best predictor of achievement gain.…

Retrospective examination of primary graders' (N=34) preschool performance on a predictive instrument and its relationship to primary school reading achievement found that those judged as needing (and who took) another year of preschool were reading significantly better than others who displayed similar developmental anomalies but did not take…