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 study was concerned with the validation of the "Hicks Cloze-Reading Test," an evaluative instrument to be used by the classroom teacher in assessing the reading ability levels of children. Three instruments, the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test," the "Standard Reading Inventory," and the "Hicks Cloze-Reading…

A total of 339 pupils from 99 first-grade classes were tested over a 2-year period to determine whether they could pronounce words presented singly, out of context, equally well when they were printed with all capital letters, first letter only capitalized, or all lower case orthography. The Isolated Word Recognition test of the Standard Reading…

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.…

A study made with three specially selected groups of students reading similar material revealed that there was little difference in speed and comprehension between reading printed material in books or on microfilm. One test group was composed of students trained to read in thousands of words per minute. (Author)

This study is concerned with the measurement of reading flexibility. The contents include: "Review of Literature," which discusses the different concepts of reading flexibility and presents several definitions followed by a summary of variables revealed in these definitions; "Synthesis of Strengths and Weaknesses," which looks…

The purpose of this study was to provide increased understanding of the process and testing of the comprehension of certain kinds of expository and argumentative prose. A criterion-related reading test was constructed using as a criterion the Finder-Cochrane Task Analysis for Comprehending Exposition and Argument. A panel of three experts ruled on…

This study determined if use of an organizer, which was a focus-type material in paragraph form, would significantly affect reading comprehension of prose material by freshmen junior college students. Also examined was placement of the organizer before, after, or both before and after the prose material. Intelligence and prior reading ability…

The purpose of this study was to determine empirically the individual components of critical reading tests and subtests, enabling inferences to be made about the definitions of critical reading and critical thinking and about the relationship between them. The subjects were 50 Hillsborough County, Florida, fifth graders, most of whom were white…

The Basic Word Vocabulary Test (BWVT) was extended downward by administering it orally to 96 pupils selected randomly from grades one through four. Estimates of aural understanding vocabulary at each grade were obtained and were found to be much lower than results from previous studies, due to the strict criteria of the BWVT. Correlations with the…

Concludes that teachers should use less difficult reading material when administering oral reading tests for a true picture of a child's syntactic and contextual strategies. (MKM)

In this study the Graded Word List proved to be a poor indicator of fourth through eighth grade students' scores on an informal reading inventory. (MKM)

Describes a technique for measuring reliability (the consistency of decision making across repeated test administrations) and validity (the accuracy of decision making between administration of a reading test and administration of a criterion measure) and gives an example of its use. (JM)

Offers a humorous look at some approaches to research in reading. (FL)