The purpose of this study is to examine factors that influence students' reading of derived words. Recent research suggests that the lexical quality of a derived word depends on the familiarity of the word, its morphemic constituents (i.e., base word and affixes), and the frequency with which the base word appears in other words (i.e., members of…

As the first title in the new series, "New Directions in Communication Disorders Research: Integrative Approaches", this volume discusses a unique phenomenon in cognitive science, single-word reading, which is an essential element in successful reading competence. Single-word reading is an interdisciplinary area of research that incorporates…

This study investigated the effect of self-regulated learning, as indicated by academic self-concept, motivation and learning strategies, reading attitude and family based prerequisites on reading ability. Students (n=4018) in the eighth grade answered the IEA reading literacy test, the self-regulated learning questionnaire and a student…

Since English has been an international language, how to enhance English levels of people by useful computer assisted learning forms or tools is a critical issue in non-English speaking countries because it definitely affects the overall competition ability of a country. With the rapid growth of wireless and mobile technologies, the mobile…

This paper challenges the assumption that meaning is in some way magically encoded within texts and argues that questions, when they are used simply as tools to lead readers to a single meaning, are inadequate as a means of reading comprehension assessment. The paper then goes on to describe one of a series of micro case studies that explored…

This study examined whether informal medical assessments could be used by classroom teachers to assess fine-motor ability and if there is any connection between fine-motor ability and reading achievement. Subjects were 174 half-day kindergarten children from whole-language classrooms in three states. Subjects were pretested in October and…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether significant mean differences exist in standardized reading scores between a district that utilized a single basal series to develop reading ability and a district utilizing a tri-basal approach to reading. A cross-section of elementary teachers from two similar suburban school districts that…

A study gathered data on the effectiveness of four phonological awareness measures in predicting reading outcome in first grade. The "Test of Non-Verbal Intelligence" (TONI) and the "Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test" (PPVT) were used to assess the cognitive abilities of 54 first-graders from a middle class elementary school in a…

A study used a primed lexical decision task to explore readers' use of "onset" and "rime" units in processing words. Onset segments include the initial consonant or consonant cluster of a syllable, while rime segments consist of the pronounced vowel group and any final consonants. Subjects were 32 fifth graders and 27 college…

Since E.L. Thorndike's landmark 1917 study of the complexity of reading comprehension, inferential research has generally focused on either inference as a developmental process or the nature of inferences made during reading. In his 1930 study, R. W. Tyler established that inference could be objectively measured. S. G. Paris conducted several…

A study was conducted for additional support of the view that bridging--drawing inferences to relate a sentence to a preceding sentence--occurs during reading rather than at the time of testing. Subjects were 88 third and 67 fifth grade students whose reading proficiency was measured by performance on the Metropolitan Achievement Test. The…

Examined were the development of reading and reading-related abilities in 6 severely emotionally disturbed institutionalized boys 12- to 15-years-old who demonstrated unexpected rote reading abilities (4th- to 6th-grade levels) despite moderate to severe intellectual retardation. (CL)

Fluency in language as measured by total number of communication units appears to be the single most important concomitant of reading success. (JH)

Noting that the demands of literacy have increased and that it is in this context that literacy performance must be evaluated, this book summarizes the most important results of the Young Adult Literacy Assessment, and provides thoughtful analysis of their implications from the standpoint of unemployment, economic competitiveness, the problem of…