Investigates how Ritalin, a powerful stimulant drug frequently prescribed for children exhibiting hyperactive behavior, poor attention span, and/or distractibility, is prescribed for children in educational settings, what doses seem appropriate, and what effect Ritalin has on reading achievement. Discusses the implications of Ritalin research for…

A study examined the effectiveness of an integrated language arts instructional format for teaching reading compared with the effectiveness of the typical traditional reading program. The study investigated the effectiveness of approaches that are representative of both viewpoints of the reading process (i.e., word recognition and the construction…

Focusing on eliminating the disparity of literacy between low income, ethnically or culturally diverse populations and their more advantaged counterparts, this paper describes policies and procedures on how to ensure that all children in Washington State schools attain the highest levels of literacy possible. After some background information, the…

Discusses factors related to parental involvement and reading achievement, including the benefits of parents reading to children, home environment factors, socioeconomic factors, barriers to parental involvement, and school involvement. Investigates whether parental involvement made a difference in the reading achievement of 30 second graders in a…

Building on an international survey including nearly 10,500 teachers and 200,000 students in 32 countries, this booklet presents empirical data relevant to the controversial issue of how children should be taught to read. The booklet examines a broad spectrum of teaching conditions, teacher characteristics, and instructional practices and relates…

A study assessed the strengths, weaknesses, and degree of implementation of the reading dimension in the English Language Arts curriculum in grades 4, 8, and 11 of English language schools in Manitoba, Canada. At each grade, the student test assessed five major areas of reading performance. Assessment materials consisted of a student test, a…

In implementing a districtwide reading project emphasizing staff development for middle school level teachers, the Moore County, North Carolina district conducted a study to determine whether middle school children could exceed their prior reading growth rates over a three-year period. Students from grades four through eight were pretested in the…

During the last 20 years, the relationship between reading instruction and assessment has been framed by the logic of mastery learning. The ultimate goal of mastery learning is assuring a given achievement outcome across students by varying input characteristics such as the amount and kind of instruction and practice, or the attention paid to…

During the first phase of a three-phase study of teaching basic reading skills in the secondary schools, 43 secondary-school reading classrooms were observed for three days, and the relationships between teaching processes and students' gains in reading were examined. Data were recorded with the Secondary Observation Instrument, and the Classroom…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The five titles deal with the following topics: (1) a comparison of manuscript writing at the beginning of first grade with reading achievement at the end of first grade, (2) using text comprehension as a metaphor for understanding…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) reading achievement as a function of home media environment and orientations toward learning; (2) reading ability and offense categories of delinquents; (3)…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 19 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effects of study guides on content retention and reading achievement among community college freshmen; (2) the effects of schemata and text structure on…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 16 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) attitudes and reading achievement in an innovative high school; (2) the interaction of learning styles and word type as they affect word recognition among…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 6 titles discuss the following topics: (1) the effects of comparison/contrast writing instruction on the reading comprehension of tenth-grade students; (2) an exploration of the role of language awareness in high school students'…

A study of the requisite processes for establishing diagnostic validity in reading was conducted in a seventh grade remedial reading classroom. The study's objectives were to (1) collect reliable diagnostic data on each student's performance in word recognition, oral reading, silent reading comprehension, and listening comprehension before and…