Reports that children do employ semantic/syntactic linkages in comprehending text, but not so early as expected. (DD)

Concludes that providing first and second grade students with books to read over summer vacation may prevent a loss of reading skills. (Author/FL)

Investigates the use of speech feedback during independent word reading and its effects on the remediation of reading skills. Finds that speech feedback requests were not dependent on word difficulty. Concludes that the most promising way of giving support to the development of reading skills is to present segmented-word sound. (MG)

Reports on two experiments which examined whether normal and disabled readers differed in the ability to use orthographic structure information to process printed material. Finds that disabled readers use orthographic structure information as much or more than normal readers. (MM)

Discusses how students become automatic at reading sub-skills, the indicators that can be used to determine whether a student is automatic, and the psychological mechanisms that allow students to perform complex skills automatically. Discusses implications of automaticity research for teaching reading. (RS)

Presents the personal history of Donald D. Durrell, whose research and teaching marked several generations of reading education research and practice, focusing on: early family history; the William B. Durrell family; high school education and early teaching; university education; career; related activities; marriage and family; and the…

Records the eye movements of college age readers while they read aloud and then analyzes to see if there is a causal relationship between "careless" eye movements and oral reading omissions and substitutions. Finds that contrary to conventional wisdom, most omitted and substituted words are visually examined, and examined thoroughly,…

Educators must understand and act on scientific evidence so that the reader learns to access print accurately and fluently. The process of conducting scientific research is presented so that scientific evidence can be clearly understood by the educators to select the most effective and instructional approaches.

With increasing attention focused on comprehension, there is a need for research regarding how to implement comprehension instruction for struggling readers and assess its effectiveness. This article describes reading instruction as it occurred over two years with one struggling reader in third and fourth grade. A comprehension checklist provided…

"The Critical Word Factor," based on word recognition demands of texts, is a measure of text difficulty designed specifically for texts used by beginning readers. The measure is a function of the number of new, unique words per 100 running words of text that fall outside a designated curriculum. The authors investigated the validity of the…

Second language (L2) reading research suggests that there is a complex interplay between L2 proficiency, first language (L1) reading and L2 reading. However, not much is known about the effect of L1 proficiency on L1 reading, and of L1 reading on L2 reading, or vice versa, in bilingual settings when readers have few opportunities for extensive…

One of the key requirements of the Common Core State Standards for Reading is that all students must be able to comprehend texts of steadily increasing complexity as they progress through school. By the time they complete the core, students must be able to read and comprehend independently and proficiently the kinds of complex texts commonly found…

This report contains the best national data available to provide a reliable and comprehensive overview of American reading today. While it incorporates some statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts' 2004 report, "Reading at Risk," this new study contains vastly more data from numerous sources. Although most of this information is…

Concludes that test results are essentially the same for both the Flesch and Gunning reading indices. (RB)