Vocational education students are characterized by the fact that they tend to lack role models and subsequently lack coping strategies. In addition, they lack educational planning. Many are casualties of a prior hope in that they have already dropped out of or have been pushed out of academic programs. At the same time, occupational training…

Testing reading by testing the bits and pieces of reading leads to teaching the bits and pieces instead of teaching reading. Reading is a total skill rather than a subject, and a skill can best be tested by performance. Some of the purposes for reading tests include showing test score improvement, diagnosis, satisfying parents, grouping or sorting…

Suggests an augmented role for reading and comprehension in the expansion of students' knowledge base and the development of ethical values. Suggests that one class hour each day be spent reading works of high literary quality reflecting the mores and moral standards of civilized society. (DMM)

Discusses how words function with regard to the reality they represent. Claims that, generally, people substitute descriptions of reality for reality. (JD)

Describes the organizational and linguistic skills that enable a reader, first, to interpret the statements in a text and their relationship to each other, and second, to judge the relative importance of these statements. Considers the interrelation between the two types of skills and how this applies to instructional strategies. (SED)

Discusses the drawbacks of using the ACTFL-ETS Provisional Proficiency Guidelines in a university foreign language department. Recommends that reading skill should be measured by depth of understanding and perhaps speed rather than by the kind and number of specific elements of language the reader has failed to "understand." (SED)

Defines reading as a psycholinguistic process. Discusses research into the application of models of native language reading to the processes of second language reading which suggests that there are positive correlations between reading ability in native and target languages. Presents practical applications of this research to teaching reading in a…

Discusses research and instances of children learning to read and or write in the home without formal instruction, tracing the development of such natural literacy. Argues that literacy is primarily a social process, involving both teaching and learning. (HTH)

Hypotheses that have related home television use to schooling are categorized. Available evidence about overall effects suggests a small effect on reading growth, hints at a tendency for socially advantaged children to be most vulnerable to effects, and is largely uniformative as to the validity of particular explanatory hypotheses. (Author/GK)

Describes research on reading achievements of children who have not begun formal reading instruction. Indicates that children employ meaning, decoding, and memory as principal strategies for an effective approach to reading instruction. (Author/MJL)

Argues for the acceptance of subvocalization while reading. (FL)

The author refutes the conclusions of S. Finnegan's paper (see EJ 223 666) on the relationship between reading ability and auditory discrimination. (Author/PHR)

Suggests that since experts differ in their interpretation of reading, it is essential to establish a common concept of reading that involves the notions of independence, understanding, utilization, appreciation, and enjoyment in order to have fruitful discussions of reading progress between parents and teachers. (AEA)

Addresses the need for reading skills to sustain everyday life in the United States: definitions, the history of literate society, visual literacy as a first step to reading ability, the basic reading skills, and the use of the arts as a motivation towards reading. (JD)

Jeanne S. Chall, Roger Farr, John C. Manning, Robert B. Ruddell, Russell G. Stauffer, Dorothy S. Strickland, and Richard L. Venezky comment on significant developments in reading during the 1970s, hopes for the 1980s, and important references dealing with teaching children to read. (DD)