This paper describes how Alameda High School in California is using the Speaking Dynamically Pro v2.0 software by Mayer-Johnson to help 13 special education students (ages 14-18) communicate and make the world more accessible. The students have a range of disabilities and skill levels. This computer program enables the students to make choices,…

Originally developed as part of a project for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on the role of vocabulary in reading and learning is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes an overview of the project; a comprehensive search of the ERIC…

A study investigated the development of information processing as it relates to the development of reading skills by studying how good readers and poor readers utilized orthographic information. Subjects, 90 good and poor readers from grades 2, 4, and 6, participated in four 30-minute sessions in which they were required to make a same/different…

The Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) was developed by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), in response to Texas House Bill 72 (1984), which mandated a new basic skills assessment program for mathematics, reading, and writing at grades 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11. This is one in a series of Instructional Strategies Guides designed to…

Ethnography is a research methodology that belongs to a genre of research called by various names, including educational anthropology, participant observation, case study, field study, and naturalistic inquiry. Ethnography was used as the research methodology for a nine-month study of adult beginning readers in Virginia. The research design was a…

A commonly held belief about reading instruction in the elementary grades is that students must first learn to read so that they will then utilize their reading skill to learn from written language and to acquire new ideas. Consequently most of the instructional time in the primary grades is spent in teaching students how to recognize words and…

This study was undertaken to identify the reading strategies which facilitated or inhibited the progress of adult beginning readers (ABRs). An ethnographic approach was used so that factors influencing the ABRs' acquisition of these reading strategies could be identified. Using an adapted form of the Goodman and Burke taxonomy of oral reading…

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…

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…

Intended for use with unit three of the Spanish as a Second Language curriculum for grade one, these supplementary instructional aids include visual aids and ditto masters for seatwork by students as well as for class activities. A teacher's guide corresponding to this unit, which consists of kits 9-12, gives the timetable for when these materials…

The instructional concept guide is part of a system developed for tutor training and support. It is primarily designed for volunteers, but it can also be adapted to the training of paraprofessional tutors for any type of adult literacy program. A key component in the system is the Tutor Support Library, consisting of Instructional Concept Guides…

An experimental first-year German program at the University of Texas is described. The course builds on and extends psychologist James Asher's Total Physical Response strategy and is based on five principles: (1) presenting language as communication in context; (2) teaching recognition before production; (3) postponing demands for error-free…

Four tests--PPVT, ITPA, MRT, WPPSI--commonly used to measure language development in young children are evaluated by four criteria: (1) what development aspects do they claim to tap; (2) what do they actually tap; (3) what linguistic knowledge is presupposed; (4) what special problems face a non-standard English speaker. These tests are considered…

An experiement was conducted to test the hypothesis that interest inventory items would function as reinforcing stimuli in a visual discrimination task. When previously rated liked and disliked items from the Strong Vocational Interest Blank were differentially presented following one of two responses, subjects learned to respond to the stimulus…

Prepared by the Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Growth, the Wisconsin Design for Reading Skill Development (Design) contains several components. The field study evaluation of the Word Attack element in terms of attainment of objectives is reported in this conference paper. All children in grades 1 to 3 of two Wisconsin…