This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 40 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effects of oral reading of literature by teachers on reading attitudes of fourth grade students; (2) two instructional programs for teaching first grade students to read; (3) the effects of need to achieve, test anxiety, reward, and instructions on reading vocabulary performance; (4) the effects of father-child and mother-child reading programs on reading readiness; (5) the development of newspaper-based lesson plans designed to supplement reading programs; (6) the effects of selected syntactic structures on oral reading performance; (7) sex differences in reading readiness; (8) a psycholinguistic analysis of reading strategies of early readers; (9) a study of an elementary school library program emphasizing personal reading development; (10) cognitive self-instruction to increase comprehension in early readers; (11) preschoolers' knowledge of the symbolic function of written language in storybooks; and (12) the selection of basal reading textbooks. (HTH)