Noting that the use of a postal test for literacy measurement is an innovation, this paper describes the four reading tests used to measure the reading skills of a sample of students starting their studies in the Open University at the foundation course level. The paper also discusses reading skills and their assessment, followed by a rationale…

In an effort to evaluate comprehension skills with a "real world" task, students were asked to summarize and respond to an excerpt from a college freshman textbook. The written responses of a group of both high school students (n=100) and college students (n=51) were analyzed through a checklist developed to assess students'…

Three studies investigated the nature of the author-reader relationship during discourse comprehension and production, as well as the influence of selected factors on the author-reader relationship. The first study produced data indicating that the relationship is susceptible to subtle variations in the identity of the author. In those situations…

Three authors comment on the value of personal recommendations for college admission, how these recommendations should be used and read, what constitutes good reading skill, and what types of articles admissions officers read. Papers presented at the Annual Conference of the National Association of College Admissions Counselors, Atlanta, Georgia,…

The relationship of traditional and nontraditional variables to grades achieved by University of Portland (Oregon) students in five different majors (business, liberal arts, education, nursing, and engineering) was studied. Traditional variables were: the college major; freshman writing class grade; California Aptitude Test (CAT) scores in…

Of all the effective strategies available to college developmental reading students, annotating (noting important ideas or examples in text margins) and underlining have the widest appeal among students and the most practical application in any course. Annotating/underlining serves a dual function: students can isolate key ideas at the time of the…

A study of the vocabulary adequacy of college students using words from a daily newspaper duplicated an earlier study using words from "Reader's Digest" which indicated a low level of adequacy. Two groups of 295 and 397 college juniors and seniors in teacher education courses indicated on a list of 80 words taken from a daily newspaper which ones…

To investigate the relationship between reading ability and the detection and repair of text-based (internal) inconsistencies, a study examined 100 college students enrolled in an introductory educational psychology course at a large state university. Based on their performance on the comprehension portion of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test,…

Two experiments were conducted (1) to identify the component processes of language comprehension that draw upon cognitive capacity for their execution, and (2) to determine differences in patterns of resource allocation during integrative processing for good and poor readers. In the first experiment, nine good and nine poor college-age readers…

A study examined the interaction between reading ability and text format. Subjects were 120 sophomores and juniors enrolled in reading methods courses at Montclair State College (New Jersey) who were divided into two equal groups of skilled and unskilled readers by means of a diagnostic reading test. Experimental reading passages based upon…

A study of the vocabulary and comprehension scores of juniors and seniors at Marygrove College was conducted during the winter term of 1983 in order to determine the reading levels needed for success in upper division courses. Because the research was designed to determine the reading levels needed for successful study, students on academic…

This paper describes the materials, processes, and effects of three individualized compensatory courses in reading, writing, and mathematics. Each course was outlined separately and evaluated according to student performance in selected transfer-level courses. Follow-up studies for each course show that the performance level of former…

Despite the fact that only a small percentage of eligible senior citizens takes advantage of the opportunity, increasing numbers are enrolling in college and university classes. Not only do elderly college students have to overcome the long lapse of years since they were students, but age and maturity typically cause physical and psychological…

A series of studies was conducted to determine the reading and study skills needs of nontraditional students in the Indiana University-South Bend open enrollment program. An investigation of reading level conducted with 61 students in introductory English classes determined that 20% were at the remedial level in reading and more than 44% were at…

It was reasoned that readers who have difficulty processing intersentence relationships to discover main ideas of paragraphs would be among those identified as weak comprehenders by a standardized test measure. To test the hypotheses related to this premise, 48 community college students designated as good and poor comprehenders on main idea items…