Research suggests that reading is a written language process that is learned naturally in much the same way as oral language. To test this hypothesis, a descriptive, longitudinal study was conducted of the reading development of eight kindergarten and first grade students who showed environmental print awareness but were not considered readers.…

The relationships typically existing between scores on reading tests and college grades are described. The four purposes are to: present some of the typical relationships between reading ability and college success; report upon some of the evidence supporting other possible predictors of college success; describe some of the problems associated…

Drawing on a cross-national study of children's reading, a study examined the correlates of reading success and failure in Taiwan. Subjects, 240 randomly selected Taipei fifth graders, were administered a reading test, cognitive test, and mathematics achievement test. A structured interview with each child's mother and classroom behavior…

Intended for those who want to encourage children to read, this book deals with children learning to read at different stages and explores four assumptions: reading is an important thing to do; reading is learned by reading; what beginning readers read makes all the difference to their view of reading; and to be successful, teaching and learning…

To develop a new model of the reading process, a longitudinal study investigated the importance of the concepts of cohesion and register (fiction or nonfiction) in the assessment of text readability. Subjects, 436 8-year-olds (Cohort A), 474 10-year-olds (Cohort B), and 445 13-year-olds (Cohort C) from 23 urban and rural British schools--most of…

A study examined the influence of classroom organization, student age, and student ability on 122 students' perceptions of who were the "better readers" in their classrooms. The students were members of one second grade and one fifth grade receiving reading instruction in a whole-class format; a second-third grade combination classroom taught with…

The Structure of Intellect (SOI) learning abilities test and curriculum emphasize teaching that promotes individualized learning and divergent thinking and recognize special problems in identifying underachievers, minority gifted students, and differing abilities in boys and girls. The model addresses these variations by taking the view that…

The findings of this study support the position that well designed and implemented concept lessons are more effective in facilitating concept acquisition and retention than the conventional means of teaching concepts presented in social studies textbooks. Participating in the study were 147 students randomly assigned to a two-day treatment…

The following papers are presented in this publication: (1) "The Technology of Teacher-Competency Testing" (Cordell Wynn); (2) "The Black Public School Teacher: Alabama's Endangered Species" (Charlena Bray); (3) "Early Identification and Preparation for Successful Entry into Teacher Education Programs" (M. Carolyn…

This study focused on whether a supplemental program in structural analysis would improve the reading proficiency of children identified as deficient in the syntax and inflections of their language. Sixty-nine second-grade children, whose psycholinguistic ages were determined by scores on a grammatic closure test, to be six months or more below…

This discussion examines the relative effectiveness of preschool intervention programs for improving reading skills and provides a review of some of the research concerning such interventions. Four types of preschools are defined: traditional (eclectic in approach), cognitive (stressing the development of learning abilities), informational…

The great majority of poor readers in urban schools are members of an ethnic minority, a low social class, and a poor family. The simple recognition of these factors, however, is of no help in characterizing the specific sources of language norms among urban minority students or in determining the ways these distinctive norms interfere with…

Language development and dialect are measures of influences upon a student's ability to learn to read. It has been observed that students whose language differs from that used in schools and in the materials of instruction are often found in remedial reading classes. Their difficulty lies in attempting to learn to read a language which is…

This book consists of papers presented and discussions held at two Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation conferences on education and the urban crisis in Britain. Fundamental changes taking place in British cities are examined and are compared to urban problems in the United States. It is stated that the "urban crisis" is simply another way of…

The research described in this report is the first part of an attempt to study the development of both overall reading ability and verbal encoding efficiency in an effort to see how the two are related. The report proposes a theory of prerequisite or hierarchical relationships and suggests that there may be differences between performance of a…