One of the special arrangements in testing contexts is to allow dyslexic students to listen to the text while they read. In our study, we investigated the effect of read-aloud assistance on young English learners' language comprehension scores. We also examined whether students with dyslexia identification benefit from this assistance differently…

Curriculum-based measurement of reading (CBM-R) is used to estimate oral reading fluency. Unlike many traditional published tests, CBM-R materials are often comprised of 20 to 30 alternate forms/passages. Historically, CBM-R assessment materials were sampled from curricular materials. Recent research has documented the potentially deleterious…

Three readability formulas were recalculated to be more suitable for Navy use. The three formulas are the Automated Readability Index (ARI), Fog Count, and Flesch Reading Ease Formula. They were derived from test results of 531 Navy enlisted personnel enrolled in four technical training schools. Personnel were tested for their reading…

The relationship between content readability measures and mathematics test item difficulty was measured. An attempt was made to use readability to predict item difficulty. Results from the study are noted as somewhat discouraging, with only about 11 percent of the item difficulty variance explained by the selected readability measures. (MP)

This handbook for the bilingual vocational curriculum specialist contains seven modules which describe the process of developing curriculum materials to be used by students of limited-English-speaking ability. Module 1 is an introduction to the handbook which discusses bilingual education in the United States and the role of the teacher in…

Intended to address the problems associated with functionally illiterate students, this manual provides vocational educators with strategies for incorporating reading skills into specific content area instruction. The exercises stress the skills necessary to assess vocational classroom reading materials, develop content specific vocabulary, and…

This article describes the development of a tool for evaluating printed nutrition materials on the basis of readability, stereotyping, use of instructional aids, format, and content. The tool is intended to evaluate prenatal nutrition materials for pregnant adolescents. (Author/SA)

Two experiments were conducted to determine the emergent reading levels of elementary school students. In the first experiment, 27 third grade and 27 sixth grade students of average reading ability from rural schools in central Florida were given pretest and posttest cloze passages on science materials two readability levels above their grade…

This document is the third volume in a set of five Career Education Measurement Handbooks intended to help local education personnel in measurement and evaluation. Divided into seven major sections, this handbook is designed to provide practical guidelines for improving career education instruments developed at the local level. It is primarily…

This thesis explores some difficulties associated with the use of the cloze procedure, particularly in relation to the interpretation of an individual's score on a cloze test. Cloze tests were administered to 112 grade-six children in four schools. The results indicated that for the children in this study the easiest words to replace were those…

This paper examines the nature of dictionaries and encyclopedias, focusing on some of the preparation that has gone into the construction of a dictionary of language testing at the University of Melbourne (Australia). It discusses the purpose of such dictionaries, the nature and size of dictionary/encyclopedia entries, and the readability of…

A study investigated whether lowering the reading level of a health education pamphlet would increase comprehension by adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) readers. The reading level of a general pharmacy education handout was lowered by changing vocabulary, sentence structure, and organization, by highlighting the main idea of each point, and…

Cloze tests assess the readability of a book for students in a far more personal way than formulas or standardized tests of reading comprehension. The cloze procedure reflects the total language abilities in the following ways: familiarity with sentence structure, context clues, and vocabulary, and the ability to draw inferences from written…

Discussing the established legislation and background behind the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, this document outlines reading test specifications for third and fifth grade. It gives specifications for grades three and five on Reading Passages, Readability, Test Conditions, and Test Forms. Two sections are devoted to details for each grade…

Although informal reading inventories are widely used, they are not without their shortcomings, regardless of whether they have been published commercially or have been constructed by the teacher. There are at least two significant weaknesses in inventories developed by the teacher: (1) passages selected randomly from the graded basal readers that…