Recent research on reading comes from a variety of different kinds of studies all of which report the same bleak picture of college students' and adults' reading abilities. Researchers, theorists and faculty members can benefit from this detailed review of the various types of studies. These include large scale direct tests of reading ability in…

The reading abilities of enlisted personnel are of interest to the Air Force for a number of reasons. One important reason is that the Air Force must ensure that airmen have the abilities necessary to read and comprehend training material and job aides such as technical orders (TOs). Since reading ability tends to differ among the Air Force…

Describes a study in which 100 university students completed tests of spelling production, vocabulary, reading comprehension, reading experience, and reading accuracy. Finds that reading experience, as measured by an adaptation of the Author Recognition Test, and reading accuracy contributed to the prediction of spelling beyond the joint…

In order to assess various reading and writing abilities of adults, for comparison with corresponding abilities of pupils in grades 7 through 12, and to investigate the extent to which adults' reading and writing abilities can be regarded as satisfactory, answers to a series of tests and questionnaire data were obtained from random samples of…

Concludes that not all functions of oral language develop to the same extent in readers and nonreaders and that this is not related solely to IQ. (FL)

Describes a study conducted by Ron Carver that compared the reading rate and comprehension of speed readers with superior readers. (HOD)

Presents results from a study that used an intensive design approach to investigate cognitive aspects of fluent reading. Cites data from the study to illustrate the advantages of the methodology for monitoring intrasubject variability in text processing. (FL)

Investigates whether orthographic processing ability in adults accounts for variance in individual word recognition and spelling skills. Finds that some individual differences in reading and spelling are caused by variation in orthographic processing skills linked to print exposure. (RS)

A study investigated what adults think about the nature of changes in reading ability across the life span. Subjects, 121 undergraduate students at two major midwestern universities and 24 non-faculty employees at one of these schools, were asked to list five or more skills which they thought were important for being a good reader at four…

A study was conducted to examine the reading levels of United States Air Force civilian employees according to occupational groupings and grade structure. Approximately 1,050 Air Force civilian subjects were tested on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test or the California Reading Test. Subjects were selected from eight Air Force bases representing the…

This document presents cross-sectional and longitudinal data relating the time required to read orally 50 unrelated letters, 50 unrelated words, and 100 words in text among first to sixth grade children and adults. Results include concurrent correlation between letter, word, and text times ranging between .18 and .92 with a median of .77.…

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to assess reading attitudes of normal adult readers (N=84) and to examine relationships among attitude and other reading-related factors. Positive reading attitude was associated with high reading comprehension test scores, higher education attainment, and high self-rating of reading ability.…

The case study of a 78-year-old music composer who had had a stroke revealed that he had a severe reading disturbance, a well-preserved writing ability, and no appreciable aphasia. He continued to read music and to compose. His text and music reading performance under different conditions suggested that this unusual dissociation (alexia without…

This study attempted to compare the phoneme shifting ability of nonreading adults, and remedial elementary and good elementary students. The Phoneme Shifting Test was used to evaluate the phoneme shifting skill, specifically the shifting of the first and the last letters of words. Individual testing was done during October 1974. Phoneme shifting…

Conducted from October 1970 through August 1971, this assessment of reading was concerned with four age levels--9, 13, 17, and 26-35. A total of 98,016 people responded to a wide variety of reading exercises which were administered and scored by trained professionals. The results were then examined according to various group characteristics: sex,…