A study investigated the relationship among reading style, instructional method, and reading achievement. Subjects were 213 second-grade students attending a large school in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, with 84 students using a basal reader series with a phonics emphasis, 90 students using a basal reader series with a mixed emphasis, and…

A study examined whether a group of eighth graders whose teacher read orally to them for 10 minutes daily would develop greater interest in reading for pleasure than similar students who did not experience the teacher reading orally to them. Subjects, 36 urban and suburban youngsters, were divided into an experimental and a control sample.…

To the traditional arguments for teaching children to read can be added the contemporary idea that literacy is a tool, the necessary skill for full participation in society, and the ticket to social mobility and success. New reasons for reading books have emerged from recent gains in the understanding of the comprehension process and the nature of…

Papers presented at a roundtable session at the 1986 International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) conference consider current research in reading. They include: (1) "Bibliopsychology--The Contribution of a Study of Temperament" (R. O. Linden, Japan), which examines research on the impact of communication media on the…

Both sentence length and sentence complexity of various kinds of newspaper prose were examined in a study to determine (1) ways newspaper prose differs from the prose of books native English speaking students chose to read and enjoy reading and (2) whether there are features of newspaper prose other than vocabulary and a lack of international news…

Secondary school reading teachers are confronted with the goal of enticing adolescents to a lifelong appreciation of books. Unfortunately, teaching the "classics" of literature frequently entails stylistic enrichment and understanding of literary devices, something of a "bottom-up" approach, that turns many students away from…

Research has consistently shown that vocabulary knowledge, including both word recognition skills and understanding of word meaning, is highly predictive of achievement in other aspects of reading--oral and silent reading and comprehension. The importance of instruction in word recognition and decoding has been recently demonstrated by the rise in…

A longitudinal study in 10 rural Wisconsin communities examined the development of reading attitude in subjects from early childhood to middle adulthood. Subjects, 84 white adults ranging in age from 35 to 44 years, represented a wide range of educational attainment levels, a wide range of occupations, and had participated in studies of reading…

A review of the literature was conducted to summarize how characteristics of individual readers help to determine the nature and quality of their comprehension of specific texts and to discuss how this knowledge might be used by teachers to promote effective reading in their classes. Three dimensions of readers were identified as being causally…

A reading activity inventory was administered to approximately 13% of the employees at one division of a high technology company in order to (1) assess the amount of time spent reading different content or topic areas, (2) assess the amount of time spent reading different types of materials, and (3) determine the prevailing uses for reading in…

It is difficult to single out a primary factor leading to the establishment of one's attitude toward reading, but environment, particularly the home, probably provides the greatest influence. Because teachers influence students, they have the potential for influencing students' attitudes toward reading. Whether teachers are seen as readers or…

To determine the relative transfer value of imposed and induced visual images in relation to level of textual materials' illustration-dependence, 108 seventh grade students read textbook excerpts written at four levels of illustration dependence under four visual imagery conditions. The four levels of illustration dependence were high, moderate,…

A study was conducted to determine the attitudes of teachers and students toward a program of uninterrupted sustained silent reading (USSR) operating in their school. The 14 teachers and 136 students in grades three through six were questioned about their attitudes toward the program. Teachers were also asked for opinions about USSR's effect on…

Starting with the observation that unless young people begin reading the newspaper for information rather than entertainment they are not likely to sustain a newspaper reading habit into adulthood, this paper goes on to describe a national movement that has begun in the United States to take the newspaper into the public schools. An estimated 600…

This study surveyed random samples of the junior high school, college, and adult population groups in Tucson, Arizona, for reading habits, self-perceived reading abilities, and the ability to retain information read in local newspapers. The survey data indicate that members of all three groups believe that they comprehend more than their peers,…