Proposition analysis was used to equate the text base of two essays with different readability levels. Easier reading essays were given higher scores than difficult reading essays. The results appear to identify another noncontent influence on essay test scores, leaving increasingly less variance for differences in content. (Author/PN)

Investigated the influence of reading time and words read per minute on the literal and interpretative comprehension of primary school students in Nigeria. (FL)

The commonly slower reading rate in the second language of fluent bilinguals is found to have a counterpart in slower rates of listening comprehension. The implications of this finding for second-language reading research are discussed. (MSE)

This study extended the exploration of the development of word identification speed to younger skilled and less skilled readers. It focused on the attainment of unitized speeds to determine when the final phase in reading development (the speed of processing) is reached for familiar words during the early years. (Author/PN)

Discusses methodological problems regarding time-on-task in experiments in which effects of extra study aids are evaluated. Illustrations of different methods of studying learning aids and their effects on the outcome are based on six experiments into the influence of concrete analogies on learning. Seventeen references are provided. (EJS)

Describes a study that compared the reading efficiency at three different reading rates of five rapid readers and two control groups. Reports that the rapid readers demonstrated superiority in rate and comprehension in free recall situations. (FL)

College students read a text either with or without inserted questions. Question groups performed better, relative to controls, on post-test items that repeated inserted questions, and on new post-test items from the same categories as the inserted questions. A selective attention interpretation of the effect of inserted questions was made.…

Reports that children's reading speed for paragraphs in which either words, syllables, or letters were spaced widely apart was a good predictor of reading ability in grades one through three, but not in grades four through six. (GT)

Comments on the rationale and methodology of the textual cue experiments of L. T. Frase and B. J. Schwartz (see EJ 203 980) and describes two studies that attempted to replicate and extend their findings using a different methodology. (Author/GT)

Two successful teaching strategies for improving students' reading comprehension, vocabulary, and speed of reading comprehension are the MRM method (identifying sentence kernels) and the LOGANAR method (logically analyzing cognitive relationships). (CJ)

Reports that students in a college reading efficiency course who had high self-images read significantly faster than those with low self-images, that students with initially high self-images did not maintain those images, that males had higher self-images and read faster than did females, and that there were negative relationships between speed…

Two experiments were conducted to test how readers process unattended words in a display and how the semantic category of these flanking words affects response time. (Author/AM)

A study of 30 adolescent Braille readers at the Tennessee School for the Blind found the most important factor related to Braille reading speed was age at onset of blindness. No direct relationships were found between reading speed and comprehension or reading speed and reading for pleasure in Braille. (Author/CR)

Results of a study with 52 dyslexic children and 52 normal readers show that reading acceleration through computer-controlled reading rates improves reading performance in both groups, but auditory masking by playing a song is beneficial only to the dyslexic children. Implications are discussed in terms of phonological processing. (SLD)

Used a curriculum-based measurement (CBM) of reading aloud from narrative passages to predict performance on statewide achievement tests in reading and mathematics. Results for 51 students (third graders in the second year of the study) provide initial support for the use of timed oral readings to predict students' performance on statewide…