The authors outline results of 3 studies conducted to examine the structure of disciplinary knowledge from reading measured through proximity data. In Study 1, 168 third-grade students were asked to read a science text and rate the relationships of keywords from the passage. From these ratings, comprehension scores were calculated that related…

When students enter middle school, they are confronted with the necessity of learning from complex content-area textbooks. Many students find these texts boring, and they may lack the higher-order reading comprehension skills they need to tackle complex text. Yet the ability to read informational text is essential to success in middle school and…

This study examined the relationships of 3 levels of reading fluency--the individual word, the syntactic unit, and the whole passage--to reading comprehension among 278 5th graders heterogeneous in reading ability. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that reading fluency at each level related uniquely to performance on a standardized reading…

Discusses reading as a culturally conditioned and situationally sensitive activity. (FL)

Argues that a literate environment can be fostered by teachers requesting children to read the daily newspaper and encouraging them to badger their parents for subscriptions. (FL)

Describes the maze technique, which is designed to evaluate reading comprehension, and presents some research substantiating reliability. (RB)

The purpose of this investigation was to test whether the assembly or system model was more adequate to account for the relationships among subskills in normal and disabled readers. Thirty-eight subjects were divided into three groups. There were 19 disabled subjects with a mean chronological age of 9.17, a mean IQ of 104.84, and a mean reading…

Apparent reading deficiencies among entering workers, combined with increasing demands for highly skilled workers, have led business and industry to increase their training and education efforts. One aspect of this effort requires understanding the reading demands people in various occupations are likely to encounter. This study examines the…

Reading tasks frequently performed by electronics engineers and technicians were identified and simulated with test items in four domains: (1) comprehending articles; (2) locating information in schematics; (3) locating information in articles; and (4) locating information in manuals. Factor analyses revealed two factors: comprehension and…

Concludes that phonological coding occurs at different rates after graphemic and semantic coding. (RB)

Proposes redefining the problem of illiteracy in terms of a "social-interaction perspective" that would emphasize the need "to acculturate students to the practices of reading in their communities" and the broad range of reading competencies required by today's society. (JBM)

Recommends that because a person's beliefs radically restrict one's perception of events, students need to be taught to detect the beliefs of those involved in reporting current events. (AEA)

Concludes that valid reading tests are needed for adults and should be designed differently than tests for academic or school-related reading. (AEA)

This current annual report describes the progress made in the following aspects of the organizational plan; the identification of a model of reading which includes a description of subskills that may be present in skilled readers and are acquired by most normal readers, the construction of criterion referenced tests to measure each of these…

After reviewing the literature on functional literacy, proposes that new measures be developed and classified according to the practical information to be obtained and the decisions to be made from them. (AA)