Journal of Literacy Research

Beginning reading materials differ considerably in the characteristics of words included in stories. While many reading texts are characterized by a limited number of words that vary in length and pattern, reading materials for phonics or linguistic instruction tend to contain a greater number of words that are similar in length and pattern. Examination of materials indicates that those with particular characteristics support learning by particular methods. This investigation explores the effect of word characteristics in reading materials on children's responses to printed words.

The Gates-McKillop Reading, the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, and the Children's Apperception Test were administered to 30 Mexican-American children in grades 1 and 3. Also, a Language Background Scale was used to rate degree of bilingualism in their homes. Results indicated, at the third grade only, a significant negative correlation between degree of Spanish heard in the home and syntactic ability, and a significant positive relationship between syntactic ability and oral reading. But, the direct relationship between Spanish heard in the home and oral reading was not significant. The evidence supports the theoretical position that dialect tends to interfere in oral reading on the syntactical, but not on the phonological level. However, the interference for Mexican-American children is likely to be transitory, diminishing as more competence in English syntax is acquired.

Using six analysts, test-retest and inter-analyst reliabilities were determined for the Automated Readability Index (ARI), the Flesch Reading Ease Score, and the Fog Count. All coefficients, with the exception of one Flesch measure, were above .94.

Analysis of variance applied to measured working times indicated that the Flesch takes significantly longer to use than the ARI and Fog.

Reading-input and reading-storage are two new, completely objective techniques, useful for measuring certain aspects of reading. Reading-input is similar to the cloze technique. Reading-storage appears to provide a good measure of reading comprehension. Reading-input and reading-storage materials are produced from prose materials using algorithms. A revised algorithm is presented for preparing reading-input materials which is easier to implement than the earlier version. A new algorithm is also presented for preparing reading-storage tests. This new algorithm produces a test quite different from that of its forerunner, and one much easier to implement. These two new techniques are compared to the multiple-choice and cloze techniques and found to encompass most of their advantages while compensating for most of their disadvantages.

In order to study the interaction of passage structure and advance organizers a prose passage containing information about 6 obscure American Presidents was presented to 144 college students either in 1 long paragraph or 6 separate paragraphs. Half of the subjects in each condition were given an advance organizer describing the passage organization and half were not. Contrary to expectation, subjects given a passage with neither paragraph cues nor an advance organizer recalled better than subjects given paragraph cues but no advance organizer. Subjects given advance organizers were intermediate regardless of paragraph structure. Results were interpreted from an activity or levels of processing position.

Thirty-three educable mentally retarded children were exposed to one of three modes of word presentation: phonologically paired words in the content-function order; phonologically paired words in the function-content order; serial list with words randomly assigned. The results of the investigation indicated that the demonstrated learning performance of mentally retarded children was significantly enhanced by the phonological pairing of words, phonological pairing in the content-function word order being superior to phonological pairing in the function-content word order. It was concluded that the incorporation of new words into the educable mentally retarded child's reading vocabulary can be enhanced by the phonological pairing of content and function words.

The effects of Spanish language interference with auditory conceptualization and reading were studied in second graders. It was predicted that (a) Mexican-American Ss receive lower auditory conceptualization scores on a Spanish interference test than on a noninterference test, (b) degree of interference is positively related to reading ability among Mexican-American Ss, and (c) auditory conceptualization is positively related to reading level, regardless of ethnic group. The findings supported predictions (a) and (c), but not (b). It was concluded that though auditory conceptualization is strongly related to reading, Spanish language interference with auditory conceptualization does not extend to reading skill. In addition, caution concerning interpretation of auditory conceptualization scores was urged in the light of their strong relationship with SES.

Serum total thyroxine was measured in a group of 47 boys and 6 girls who suffered from functional dyslexia. Functional dyslexia is an actual reading level of, at least, 1½ years below mental expectancy. The thyroxine content of the serum of these children was markedly elevated compared to normal readers of similar age distribution (mean thyroxine concentration; dyslexic, 11.44 ug/dl; normal control = 7.69 ug/dl). These results indicate functional dyslexia is associated with systemic change in metabolism.