Reading encompasses a wide range of verbal processes, among them such simple verbal processes as word decoding, letter recognition, name retrieval, and semantic access. The question is whether simple verbal processing differences are adequate to account for general reading ability differences. Across different verbal domains and different ages,…

A project titled "Word of Mouth" was conducted to develop and evaluate model computer courseware to teach word attack skills to adult basic education students. The project was based on the use of multiple strategies to figure out unknown words, the importance of breaking down multisyllabic words, and the necessity of the use of audio in…

A study examined whether or not high school teachers could name or list the reading skills needed by their students. The three skills categories were comprehending expository text, understanding content area vocabulary, and applying word analysis skills. The questions used to elicit information from teachers were (1) What must students do to…

A study examined the interrelationship among print-related skills developed prior to formal reading instruction and social class differences in these skills in 33 middle-class and working-class children attending one of two high quality, reading-oriented kindergarten classes. Two hypotheses were generated: (1) that correlations would emerge among…

Intended to provide a publication outlet for systematic and substantive reviews and syntheses, both empirical and theoretical, and for integrative reports of programatic research, this volume focuses on current theory and research on word identification and comprehension and explores the implication of this work for the teaching of reading. The…

The efforts to develop and study the effects of a microcomputer program to enhance children's decoding and word recognition skills are described in this paper. The first section of the paper discusses theory and research in the area of cognitive psychology upon which the program, "Construct a Word," is based. The second section describes…

Forty-six first-grade teachers' manuals and workbooks from three basal reading series published in the 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s were examined for differences in the amount of material devoted to word-attack skills. Word-attack skills were defined as the use of phonic and structural analysis for successfully attacking unrecognized words. Results…

This study compared the rapid word processing abilities of groups of students in college, fourth grade, second grade, and kindergarten to see if there is a developmental pattern in such skill development, and to see if phonics training should emphasize either letters and the orthographic rules that create words or letter clusters (common words)…

The reaction times (RTs) of 48 elementary school students in two word identification tasks were recorded to gauge the effects of orthographic and phonic structures. The subjects, high ability and low ability students from grades four and five and from grades two and three, either matched a word to one of two pictures on display or decided if a…

Several researchers have attempted to measure sequencing and integration in the decoding process in an effort to isolate some independent variables that may contribute to reading retardation, but most have measured the ability of children to manipulate nonverbal material. It is unclear whether nonverbal tests measure the same processes involved in…

A study was conducted to examine (1) the type of instruction most likely to help both normal and learning disabled readers use the analogy strategy in reading novel words, and (2) how fifth grade disabled readers compared with normal second and fifth grade readers. Analogy strategies, the most abstract of the reading strategies, are generally…

When two adults read eleven paragraphs, assigned a meaning to the target word in each paragrah, and answered questions about their strategies for dealing with the difficult/unknown words, they exhibited four strategies, outside of actual definition, that skilled readers use to deal with such words. The most often used strategy is paragraph…

The described teacher education course is designed for elementary school teachers seeking to develop skills for building decoding ability in their beginning reading students and students who need remedial help. An outline of the scope and sequence of topics is given as well as a description of activities and resources involved in the course.…

Developed and coordinated by the Bureau of Reading Education of the New York State Education Department, Project Alert is a statewide inservice program to facilitate instituting or improving the diagnostic-prescriptive approach to reading instruction. As part of this program, a reading resource kit was prepared by the bureau to give structure and…

The problem of the panel on semantics, concepts, and culture, sponsored by the National Institute of Education Conference on Studies in Reading, was to determine how lexical, semantic, conceptual, and cultural factors contribute to reading comprehension. The contents of the document include the following: "Word Recognition Skills," which…