Adolescent Portuguese-English bilingual students participated in a study that examined the relationship between reading rate and reading comprehension. The 31 subjects were placed in one of three groups: (1) normal readers, reading at grade level as indicated by IQ test scores; (2) slow readers, reading at least two years below expected grade…

The learning assistance center at a California university offers a carefully designed learning program for faculty and staff in the areas of reading, writing, and time management. The goal of the reading efficiency course is to improve reading speed without loss in comprehension. Tests are given throughout the course to monitor progress, and…

The purpose of this study was to determine differences in word recognition strategies used by good and poor readers. Twenty good readers and twenty poor readers were randomly selected from a fourth grade class and randomly assigned to levels of a five by five repeated-measures Latin Square design. All of the subjects were given two tasks to…

This paper describes the investigation of a computerized measure of reading rate as measured by the new Nelson-Denny Reading Test CD-ROM (1993). This study addressed three aspects of validity: (1) score comparability between reading rate measured by the computer version and the paper-and-pencil version; (2) concurrent validity with reading…

Three experiments investigated the extent to which children of various intellectual abilities rely on speech-related processes in working memory. Subjects consisted of 16 learners with mental retardation (MRLs) in grades 5-9 and 16 nondisabled learners (NLs) in grades 2-3, matched in word recognition skills. The independent variable within each…

Studied for its effects on the reading fluency of elementary school students, R. C. Heckleman's Neurological Impress Method has proved an inexpensive but effective method for motivating low achievement readers. Twenty-six subjects from grades 2 to 6 practiced reading in unison with a tutor during four 15-minute sessions a week. During the sessions…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of three electronic text variables (run-around, wrap-around, and transparent text) on reading speed and comprehension. One hundred thirty-two undergraduate students in an introductory computer literacy course at a major university were asked to read one of three randomly-distributed passages…

A study investigated differences in reading rate and comprehension scores of 8th grade students on a cloze reading exercise involving the reading of a cloze passage from 10 different modes of text presentation (8 different computer screen formats and 2 different paper formats). Subjects, 300 students in computer literacy classes from 7 schools in…

Although reading flexibility (readers' adjustment of their reading rates at levels of comprehension beyond the easiest levels) is a term that has appeared in the literature since 1928, no satisfactory test has been devised to measure it. Three problems must be solved first: another measurement than words per minute must be found; readability must…

This study attempted to assess the relationship between misreading of high-frequency words and utilization of semantic and syntactic cue systems. A 250-word passage from a second-grade basal reader was altered in two ways: in one condition, the sentences were randomly ordered, and, in the other, the words were randomly ordered. Twenty-four fourth…

Anticipating a possible future method of newspaper design (including multimedia content) and delivery, a study examined the interface among people, modality (paper, computer, multimedia), and three types of news story (news, sports, entertainment). The "primacy of print" theory (which predicts that information will be recalled better…

Two longitudinal studies examined a "double deficit" hypothesis of reading disorders that contends that along with a core phonological deficit, slow speed of lexical access disrupts the efficient formation of orthographic representations and their quick retrieval. In the first study, 38 children from 6 classrooms in a predominantly white, middle…

College students in a reading rate improvement course participated in a study (1) to determine the effects of text displayed on the computer screen as opposed to the printed page and (2) to see if computerized speed reading programs changed student attitudes toward reading efficiency exercises. Subjects, 26 students of similar reading…

The commonly-used instructional sequence in which children read material silently and then read it orally is simply not effective. The arguments presented by E.A. Betts in 1957 for silent before oral reading can be countered point by point. Studies that have compared various reading conditions have had serious limitations and have failed to show…

Compressed speech tapes--recordings of a voice reading a selection at the normal rate of approximately 150 words per minute that are speeded up to as much as 400 words a minute--can be used successfully with students to provide practice in improving reading rate and comprehension. In a field test conducted with 23 high school juniors and seniors…