Oral reading fluency probes are essential for reading assessment, intervention, and progress monitoring. Due to the limited options for choosing oral reading fluency probes, it is important to utilize all available resources such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT to create oral reading fluency probes. The purpose of this…

Aka (2019) conducted an year-long large-scale study demonstrating that Japanese high school students who undertook extensive reading performed better than a control group who undertook grammatical instruction. Those showing the greatest gains were those of lower and intermediate proficiency. The students' achievement was measured in terms of…

Most of today's reading programs rest on faulty ideas about reading comprehension. The author argues that comprehension is not a general skill; it relies on having relevant vocabulary and knowledge. He explains the need for a fact-filled, knowledge-building curriculum. He suggests that states should adopt a common core curriculum that builds…

Reading skills are vital to student success, and those skills could be practiced with Shakespeare "if students are taught reading skills in the classroom." The problem is that many teachers of English do not consider themselves reading specialists and do not teach reading skills to their students. Fred L. Hamel notes that teachers in a recent…

Standards are often set by what teachers think students should know on the curriculum assigned to each of the grades. However, there are more unintended consequences of setting grade-level standards. Some students enter a grade already exceeding the grade-level standards; others enter a grade without having reached the standards of previous…

Instructional reforms are essentially worthwhile as they help students improve their reading from 13th percentile to the 25th or 34th percentile. Only with an expansion of expert tutoring, the goal of all students reading on grade level can be achieved.

Discusses the cultural limits to certainty of measurement and assessment claims about reading and examines some examples of classroom reading lessons. (Author/MLF)

The technical education student must become a proficient reader so that optimal achievement is possible in the work place. Technical education instructors must be certain that students have mastered the basics in becoming good readers. Students need to be able to read directions accurately and understand the contents. Informal approaches to…

This paper asks whether the current form of assessment is appropriate in measuring the growth of American students in the subject of reading. First, the paper examines the argument for standardized testing of skills as an appropriate form of assessment. It then points out that the people in support of this form of testing argue that these tests…

Examines four "puzzling" results of the National Adult Literacy Survey: (1) the ability to use printed information effectively is unevenly distributed in the United States; (2) adults exhibited a large gap between performance and perception of literacy skills; (3) increased literacy did not always correspond with significant earnings…

Even though Swedish students (age 9 and 14 years) placed third in the recent IEA study, reading instruction in Swedish schools is apparently no better than in other countries taking part in the IEA study. No strong correlations between type of reading instruction and students' reading skills have been found. Schools in Nordic countries work under…

The act of reading is holistic and involves acquisition of facts, concepts, and generalizations. With Instructional Management Systems (IMS) and state mandated testing, however, reading too frequently becomes a means of appraising the achievement of students in acquiring word recognition skills as well as diverse comprehension abilities. School…

High-stakes testing means that one test is used to make important decisions about students, teachers, and schools. This paper comes out against high-stakes testing, taking the position that the central concern is that testing has become a means of controlling instruction as opposed to a way of gathering information to help students become better…

Reports on changes in reading skills of students for the period 1970-90; the progress made by 9- and 14-year-old students in 1990; and the efficiency of reading pedagogy in United States schools compared with efficiencies in other leading industrial countries. Finds that reading progress in the United States is the worst among leading industrial…

Examines three questions concerning the quality of reading and writing among students: (1) is reading achievement today better or worse than in the past? (2) how well do students read in relation to the demands of their schooling and their later work? and (3) how different is reading achievement by socio-economic status? Finds that the perceived…