Text complexity in elementary classrooms is typically measured by traditional readability tools, which rely on surface-level measures of word and sentence complexity. Theoretical and empirical work on text complexity, however, indicates that additional measures of semantics, syntax, and discourse structure may be equally important for…

This study examined the structure of oral language and reading and their relation to comprehension from a latent variable modeling perspective in Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. Participants were students in Kindergarten (n = 218), Grade 1 (n = 372), and Grade 2 (n = 273), attending Title 1 schools. Students were administered phonological…

Through the presentation of two bilingual reader profiles, this article will illustrate how miscue analysis can act as a culturally relevant assessment tool as it allows for the study of reading across different spoken and written languages. The research presented in this article integrates a socio-psycholinguistic perspective to reading and a…

This paper examines the role of morphology in gradeschool children's learning to read nonpointed Hebrew. It presents two experiments testing the reading of morphologically based nonpointed pseudowords. One hundred seventy-one Hebrew-speaking children and adolescents in seven age/schooling groups (beginning and end of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 11th…

The purpose of this study was to examine the character identification strategies of Chinese children during their oral reading of a continuous text. Eighteen second graders' oral reading of a story, as well as an interview about their decoding strategies, were audiotaped and transcribed. The results generally converged with those of previous oral…

The purpose of this study was to determine the disruptive effect of unknown words on reading and to examine this effect in relationship to grammatical position and modification type. Forty second grade children from two different lower middle class, semirural schools were randomly assigned to the standardization group or the experimental group.…

Concludes that cue systems within words (graphics) are affected by syntactic and semantic cue systems within the sentences. (RB)

The purpose of this study was to determine if differences existed between second- and fifth-grade students' word recognition errors, and if differences existed between the word attack strategies utilized by them. Using the Informal Reading Inventory, a random sample of twenty-five second graders and twenty-five fifth graders was taken from three…

Four Negro children's (two average and two slow readers) oral reading was taped at eight regular intervals during their second and third year of reading instruction in order to analyze their oral reading miscues and to discover any developmental changes. Retelling of stories read was also taped to measure comprehension. The miscues were analyzed…

The reading responses of 80 second grade students to words in context and words in isolation were analyzed. The children were tested individually with four oral reading selections (kindergarten through third grade levels), a set of comprehension questions, and a word list. The children recognized fewer words in isolation than in context. The…

This study examined oral-reading characteristics associated with language development in second-grade children, working on the suppositions that oral syntactic proficiency influences a child's use of syntax while reading and that this influence can be seen in oral reading, particularly in the contextual appropriateness of errors. It was also…

A study investigated whether syntactic differences between oral and written discourse interfere with the comprehension of beginning readers. Subjects were 28 second grade and 28 fifth grade students who read, orally, versions of stories identical in nature except for the structure of their syntactic patterns. One version contained structures more…