A specific skill necessary to expand vocabulary is that of acquiring additional meanings for words that have common, already known meanings. A study was conducted to determine if presenting subjects with the known meaning of a word before requiring them to learn a new meaning for it would result in a learning detriment. The study used homonyms…

The study investigated the effectiveness of an ecological inventory and screen writing for the acquisition of reading words for secondary-aged moderately mentally handicapped students. The study utilized an ecological inventory model which is an adult-referenced curriculum based on adult tasks and local resources and environments, rather than on…

A study investigated the effect of properties of words and texts on the incidental learning of word meanings during normal reading. Subjects--352 students in third, fifth, and seventh grades--read either expository or narrative passages selected from grade-level textbooks, and after six days were tested on their knowledge of difficult words from…

A study was conducted to determine whether word length and sentence position influence the likelihood that a child will acknowledge that a word has disrupted comprehension of a reading passage. In the first task, third and fifth grade skilled and less-skilled readers read 16 short paragraphs containing nonsense words and reported whether the…

In teaching the moderately retarded student to read, it is essential to develop a basic survival reading vocabulary consisting of words necessary to remain alive, as well as to retain one's personal dignity. The individual must be able to recognize and respond appropriately to common signs of instruction and direction within the community. From a…

This report, the summary of a series of conferences on reading research, identifies two main theories about the nature of reading: (1) reading as translation, wherein printed symbols are translated into an approximation of oral language, so that the capabilities for understanding speech can be applied to written language, and (2) reading as an…

In view of the great amount of television viewing among poor readers, the Learning Model for Watching Television was developed to capitalize on students' television watching proclivities. The model encompasses three major overlapping component skill areas to reinforce classroom learning: active listening skills, auditory word recognition skills,…

Elementary teachers should focus attention on language activities that involve naturally the reciprocal relationships among listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Teachers need to value, use, and make useful the background and language of all students, through a Language Experience Approach (LEA) in which students dictate and write about…

These placement tests are designed to help teachers determine a students' Chinese reading and writing level and to place them in the appropriate grade level book in the Golden Mountain Reading Series. The tests are divided into two parts: (1) word recognition and (2) reading and writing test. (Author/CFM)

The present study employed discrete trial procedures to compare the performance of skilled and less-skilled third and sixth grade readers (N=37) on picture, letter and word naming tasks. It was assumed that if lack of proficiency in reading skill is due to a general name-retrieval deficit, then the skilled readers would be able to name each…

The "yes/no" method of vocabulary assessment requires students to indicate words they know from among a list of words and nonwords. Preliminary evidence gained from a study involving fifth grade students indicates that the method is superior in many ways to the multiple choice method of assessment. Analysis of "false alarms," cases in which…

A study was conducted to replicate earlier findings regarding the relationships between letter, word, and text reading times and measures of reading achievement and to establish the stability of reading times measures and their relationships over a one-year period. Subjects included 150 children in eight age cohorts between grades one and six. The…

Seventy-four high school seniors participated in a study that examined the construct validity of vocabulary tests and the nature of verbal ability by integrating findings and theories of cognitive psychology with those of differential psychology. The subjects completed three kinds of measurement instruments: (1) an experimental faceted vocabulary…

A study was conducted to investigate the relationships between the cognitive variables of cognitive style, understanding of linguistic concepts, and knowledge of word boundaries, as well as their relationships to three measures of reading in beginning and more advanced readers. The children's Embedded Figures Test, a linguistic concept test, a…

This study focused on two questions concerning children's attention to verbal stimulus: How do children of different reading ability attend to repeatedly presented words? Are there differences in children's patterns of attention to words as compared to less meaningful materials? Toward the end of an academic year, 40 first-graders and 40…