Many typographers have already decided that sans serif type is more pleasing to readers and more functional than traditional roman type. The findings of this study, which was designed to assess the readability of, and reader preference for, these two styles, lead to the opposite conclusion. To determine preferences, 200 subjects of various ages…

This study examined the adaptability of reading rate to passage difficulty under different conditions of task-induced processing. Sixteen experimental passages varying in subject matter and ranging from 85 to 171 words were selected from a set of 32 texts rated for comprehensibility. The eight easiest and eight hardest texts were selected. Another…

The purpose of this study were to survey scientific research, professional literature, and doctoral dissertations on reading comprehension done from 1948 to 1972, to identify the reading factors believed to affect reading comprehension, to analyze the identified reading factors by studying the major available research and related literature, to…

The purpose of this investigation was to identify the superior method of accelerating reading rate without the use of mechanical assists. A secondary purpose was to identify personality characteristics which might serve as predictors of success in reading rate. Thirty volumteer college level students completed an unstructured course in reading…

A fictional story was written in three versions: (1) traditional prose of 1,620 words, (2) medium telegraphic form of 947 words, and (3) highly condensed telegraphic form of 455 words. Two hundred and ten braille readers from grades 6 to 9 were assigned to one of the three treatment versions. Nine groups were formed on the basis of comparable age,…

According to a theory of textual cohesion, anaphoric references and noun phrase organizers may serve as cohesive ties linking separate sentences into unified paragraphs. This study revealed that only the noun phrase organizer condition was significant in promoting comprehension and indicated no difference in time scores by paragraph condition.…

Oral reading speeds for letters, words out of context, and simple text and reading achievement were measured in samples of children and adults. Results are used to discuss the nature and development of a general identification speed variable and an orthographic structure variable. (AA)

This study deals with the patterns of word-by-word reading times over a sentence when the subject must code the linguistic information sufficiently for immediate verbatim recall. A class of quantitative models is considered that would account for reading times at phrase breaks. (Author/RM)

Hypothesizes that good spellers read by full cues while poor spellers read by partial cues, and also investigates short term memory differences between the two groups. Finds good spellers were faster readers, better at identifying matches and mismatches between similar nonsense words, and had better short term memories than poor spellers. (SKC)

Examines how spelling-to-sound irregularity affects pronunciation latencies when words are presented in a sentence, and concludes that pronunciation latencies are strongly affected by the type of preceding sentence, with the specific sentences producing shorter latencies than the general sentences. (HOD)

Concludes that individuals can read unfamiliar but relatively easy material at high rates with high accuracy of comprehension, but they do not provide strong support for rauding theory. (FL)

A study examined the amount of time instructional level and remedial readers in second grade were engaged in reading connected text during an entire school day. Subjects were six instructional and six remedial readers who were observed in six different schools. Time engaged in reading connected text was defined as students' eyes following several…

Suggests that shortening the time required for administering a reading test might provide more useful screening, diagnostic and predictive information for students of diverse abilities. Bibliography. (MD)

The functions of spaces between words in adult reading of text were investigated in three experiments. Results were consistent with a two-process theory in which filling parafoveal spaces disrupts guidance of the next eye movement and filling foveal spaces disrupts processing of the fixated word as well. (Author/RD)

Suggests that oral and silent sentence reading represent a similar cognitive process. Reports that poor readers, in particular, decrease processing time on difficult words in silent as compared to oral reading. (AEA)