The primary focus of this paper is on black children and the relationship between their productive and receptive language competencies. The solutions which have been proposed to solve the dilemma of black pupils' poor reading achievement are discussed. It is noted that none of the proposed solutions has the unqualified support provided by a mass…

The information in this volume documents the author's extensive series of investigations concerning the syntactic abilities of good readers compared to dyslexics with reading comprehension difficulties. Findings corroborate the importance of syntactic ability in the reading process and confirm Goodman's psycholinguistic model of reading. Chapters…

If motivation to read fails to develop, reading failure is the outcome. All of us have very delicately balanced neural systems for integrating incoming sensory inputs, evaluating their significance in the light of past experience, and storing the learning for future use. Autistic and hyperkinetic children apparently have unbalanced neurological…

Controversies over the best way to teach word recognition in beginning reading instruction have raged for generations. The goal has been to acquire automatic skills for recoding written language into speech. At this time, a popular theory suggests that phonics is better than the look-and-say method; however the evidence does not support this…

Numerous controversies pertain to the psychology and pedagogy of reading. Among the more important controversies are questions pertaining to the existence of a hierarchy of reading subskills and the advisability of using a subskill approach. Several influential writers have warned that when the process of learning to read is fractionated into…

Techniques and procedures for teaching reading as a meaning-making, language-oriented process are the focus of this book. The underlying premise is that children are taught to read so that they have an important tool for developing and expanding concepts. In order to accomplish this aim, children must be exposed to the precision and ambiguities of…

This conference panel report focuses on the identification and validation of essential reading skills and on the organization of those skills into instructional hierarchies. The three approaches to research which the panel recommended are the identification and validation of behaviors essential or supportive to the acquisition of competent reading…

Recent attempts at defining reading are grouped into studies which report on or speculate about some aspect of the reading process, attempt to generate broad theories or models, or attempt to develop particular models or partial models on the basis of research. Six issues and concerns are then stated which appear as recurrent needs in literature:…

Reading is a very complex psycholinguistic process consummate with writing, and reading instruction aspires to develop the critical reader, whose skills and abilities empower him to comprehend, enjoy, and assess both expository and imaginative writing. Using a rich background of learning and experience, the reader must handle many frames of…

Viewing reading as involving a continual inputting of graphic symbols and responses involving varying degrees of comprehension, 10 categories of reading behavior and/or comprehension manifested by mature adult readers were identified. The 10 categories were arranged in order from simple to complex. The validity of the hierarchy was assessed by…

Career education is a wholistic concept which includes both job satisfaction and the imaginative use of leisure. It aims to facilitate education of all students so they may appropriately choose and prepare not only for their life's work but for all aspects of living. Since career education emphasizes the importance of developing vocational and…

Subjects within one reading level only were included in this study to determine reflective and impulsive subject groups on the basis of Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) test time and error scores within that reading level rather than over all levels, to use the same reading test passages for all subjects, and then to apply statistical tests of…

This paper reports on one study in a research program trying to extend existing findings on elaborative mediation in paired-associate learning into the domain of prose learning. Ten third graders and 22 fourth graders from an inner-city Catholic school served as subjects. A paraphrase recall pretest was administered which involved reading a…

A computer-based Eye-Movement Controlled Display System was developed for the study of perceptual processes in reading. Studies were conducted to identify the region from which skilled readers pick up various types of visual information during a fixation while reading. The results indicated that the subjects acquired word length pattern…

The cognitive clarity theory focuses on the learning-to-read process rather than on the reading process of the mature reader. The cognitive clarity theory already seems to show some power in explaining some puzzling findings in reading research. Some examples of these paradoxes are: earlier letter-name knowledge is highly correlated with later…