This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 14 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the English reading competence of Navajo students in public and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools; (2) the effect of syntax on readability for Spanish-speaking adult students of English as a second language; (3) the characteristics of reading programs for migrant children; (4) the effects of a parent involvement program on the reading achievement, school attitude, reading attitude, and cognitive home environment scores of Mexican-American migrant pupils; (5) developmental patterns in native and nonnative reading acquisition; (6) a reading tutorial program for underachieving migrant students; (7) reading achievement among selected adolescent Latino/Chicano students as a result of participating in an ethnocurriculum; (8) the effects of two visual training programs upon automaticity of letter and word recognition in urban black kindergarten children; (9) spelling ability as a reflection of underlying phonological representation in child speakers of black English vernacular; (10) black American vernacular vocabulary; and (11) the effect of context on the understanding of idiomatic expressions and multiple-meaning vocabulary words for monolingual and bilingual readers. (FL)