Black ninth graders did better on a black-dialect reading test than on the standard English form of the same test. (MM)

Measures the relationship between developmental maturity of kindergartners and their performance on a reading readiness test. Finds no significant differences in reading readiness based on age or sex. (RS)

Investigates the validity of the Reading Anxiety Scale. Finds that (1) reading anxiety shows a stronger negative correlation with reading achievement than does general anxiety; and (2) although general anxiety and reading anxiety correlate substantially, reading anxiety measures something beyond general anxiety. (RS)

Describes a revision of the Names Test, an easy-to-administer phonics assessment. Describes what was done to increase the test's category reliability, to further examine the test's validity, and to enhance its usability. (SR)

Surveys members of the International Reading Association concerning current assessment practices. Finds that, although innovative assessment practices as well as those most often used tend to be more holistic/naturalistic in nature, some respondents listed standardized tests as an innovative approach for disabled readers. (RS)

The purpose of this book is to introduce the research on readability, defined here as reading ease. The first part of the book covers how people read. A series of national literacy surveys show that the average person in the U.S. and most other countries are adults of limited reading skills. For example, the average adult in the U.S. reads at the…

Concludes that the "Inventory of Teacher Knowledge of Reading" is valid in discriminating between the specialist and non-specialist in reading, but that it fails to verify the seven components that the authors claim to measure. (RB)

Describes an International Reading Association award-winning dissertation designed to determine the construct validity of the cloze procedure on paragraph reading of science and social studies materials. (RB)

Working on the assumption that when reading comprehension is viewed from a constructivist framework, where meaning grows and changes as the text progresses, categorization into comprehension levels such as literal and inferential will be misleading, two third grade standardized multiple choice test items were selected from a larger body of test…

A study investigated the effectiveness of teaching children how to take reading comprehension tests. Twenty-eight fifth grade students were pretested using the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, Survey D, Form I. The students were tested on speed and accuracy, vocabulary, and comprehension. Students were given 30 minutes of daily instruction and…

In order to obtain information on the reading skill levels of Naval recruits for use in improving their reading skills, the United States Navy administered the Gates-MacGinite reading test to all available recruits in its training programs between May 1974 and May 1975. The relationship of those test scores to other personnel data indicated that a…

Three studies were performed to test the feasibility of the PLATO Computer Assisted Instruction system for on-line testing of reading skills. In Study 1, three different approaches to vocabulary assessment were tested: self-screening, synonym, and word matching under brief exposure. One hundred ten subjects from a Chicago, Illinois, public…

Finds that auditory discrimination as most tests measure it has little to do with how well children learn to read. (RB)