To compare the effects of two different comprehension treatments on the reading of university students enrolled in a developmental reading laboratory, 74 students were administered pretests measuring reading achievement and reading attitudes and were given five weeks of instruction in text organizing strategies and vocabulary development. After…

Released by the New York City Board of Education, this document reports on the success of the Learning to Read Through the Arts program for grades two through six during the 1985-86 school year. The first section introduces the Chapter 1 program, which was offered for 32 weeks at 6 different New York City sites, and explains how students are…

Addressing the need for developmental or remedial reading and writing courses at the college level, this paper provides a broad perspective on the strengthening of such programs for students deficient in these skills. The paper first enumerates various reasons for developing reading-writing courses for pre-college students, then provides evidence…

Part of an investigation of the effectiveness of Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) Chapter 1 reading programs, this document reports on a study of 699 second and fourth grade students in Chapter 1 programs in Iowa. An introduction notes that the study was conducted to discover instructional characteristics that affect student…

A study compared the average reading ability levels of freshmen enrolled at an open-door community college with the readability levels of eight content area textbooks used in courses at the institution. Subjects, 100 students enrolled in reading courses, were randomly selected and administered the Nelson-Denny Reading Test to determine reading…

A study presents descriptive and correlational results from questionnaires and tests administered to approximately 650 children in two cohorts, who, with their parents, are participating in a longitudinal study of reading comprehension development. Results from kindergarten and first-grade students showed low but positive correlations for parents'…

This two-volume report on the progress of the Instructional Program in Reading/Language Arts (IPR/LA) in the Montgomery County, Maryland schools presents a brief overview of the study design, methodology, findings, recommendations, background data, and statistical analysis tables. Volume I of the report begins with an Executive Summary of the…

In an effort to validate dynamic assessment methods influenced by Vygotsky's (1978) definition of zones of proximal development (an indicator of readiness), three sets of experiments addressed two goals: the development of diagnostic assessment methods and the use of diagnostic results to guide the design of instructional programs. The first two…

A study examined the existence in elementary school children of (1) sentence constructivity, (2) developmental differences in constructivity, (3) differences in constructivity across performance levels, and (4) differences after a one- or two-day delay. The study was intended as a partial replication of work by C. Z. Blachowicz (1977-78), which…

B. S. Bloom's theory of school learning states that three independent variables account for most of the variation in students' achievement: cognitive entry behaviors (CEB), affective entry characteristics, and the quality of instruction. These variables determine the nature of learning outcomes--level and type of achievement, rate of learning, and…

A study in eastern Ontario, Canada, evaluated a computer program, the Autoskill Component Reading Subskills Program, which was used to improve the reading comprehension of elementary school students identified as reading disabled. Subjects, 91 students from five school districts, were behind at least one grade in reading word recognition skills…

The proceedings of the seventh annual meeting of the College Reading Association consisted of the following papers: (1) "President's Report" (Martha J. Maxwell); (2) "The Library Is Your Reading Test" (Nancy Larrick); (3) "The Lehigh--Bethlehem ITA Study Interim Report Four" (Albert J. Mazurkiewicz); (4) "The…

Early reading should be studied from three perspectives: the function of print, the form of print, and the conventions of print. In so doing, it may be possible to avoid some of the hazards that have plagued the field, such as unsubstantiated assumptions about beginning reading and how it should be taught, erroneous beliefs that maturation plays…

A review of the literature that examines the relationship between television and reading achievement reveals, in general, a negative correlation between television viewing and the acquisition of reading skills. These studies, however, have been somewhat limited in both number and methodology. To further clarify the picture, a study was conducted…

The use of microcomputers to teach underprepared readers at the City University of New York (CUNY) is the focus of this report. A review of the literature highlights both the instructional and the noninstructional uses to which computers are being put in the college reading classroom today. The report points out (1) that software is a problem,…