Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

Reading is a transaction, a two-way process, involving a reader and a text at a particular time under particular circumstances (Rosenblatt, 1982). An interest in working with children, and an intrigue in the ways children transact with the stories they hear and/or read has turned me into a "Storycatcher" (Baldwin, 2005). As a storycatcher-researcher, I ventured into the world of stories at the Ottawa Public Library in order to exp-lore the narrative transactions of children between the ages of 3 and 6 years old. My Storycatching is a narrative within a narrative because my focus is on the four (4) child-storytellers' verbal and pictorial narratives, as they embody the literary transactions between themselves, their imaginations, and their live(d) experiences in response to the stories they hear during storytimes at the library.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a critical statistical analysis of the Iowa Silent Reading Advanced Tests, Form Cm. This battery of nine subtests has been designed for the diagnosis of the reading ability of students from Grade 9 to junior college. During the months of November, December and January of the academic year 1947-48, the test was administered to a total of 433 students in ten sections of English 205 at the University of British Columbia. The data from sixteen students who were unable to complete the test were rejected. (1) The mean difficulty, expressed as the [formula omitted] x 100, of the subtests ranged from 47 to 79%. That of four tests, 4, Word Meaning, 5, Sentence Meaning, 6, Paragraph Comprehension, and 7B, Selection of Key Words, ranged from 47 to 79 percent. The distribution of raw scores on subtests 5,6, and 7B, was determined to be markedly negatively skewed. (2) Subtest standard score equivalents for the subtest raw scores have been published by the test authors. With the present group, these scores for subtests 4, 5, 6, and 7A (Use of Index) were not directly comparable with those of the remaining subtests. (3) Difficulty of items in all subtests were ranged from approximately 10 percent to 99 percent passing. In three subtests, 4, 5, and 6, over 40 percent of theitems were passed by 90 percent of the group. With the exception of Part A of subtest 1C (Comprehension), items were arranged in order of difficulty for the group. (4) As an expression of item validity, phi coefficients were determined for each item, with the subtest scares as criteria. In spite of the lack of difficulty of many items for the group, most items, with the exception of the first half of subtest 5, correlated significantly with the subtest scores. (5) Reliabilities of the subtest and median scores, estimated by the Kuder-Richardson formula No.20, ranged from .725 to .916 for the subtest scores; while that of the test median was estimated as .955. Only subtests 2 (Directed Reading), 4, 5 and 7B might be considered sufficiently reliable for individual diagnosis. (6) Factor analysis by Thurstone's Centroid Method revealed three common factors, accounting for 34.3, 6.7 and 4.1 percent of the variance of the subtests respectively. In subtests 1C, 5 and 6 the variance due to the first factor exceeded 40 percent. Variance due to specific factors in subtests 1R, 2, 3, 7A and 7B exceeded that due to common factors. (7) To study the validity and predictive value of the Iowa tests, coefficients of correlation were determined between both subtest and median scores and final grades in five second year subjects, English, Economics, Geography, Mathematics and Accounting. These coefficients ranged from -.03 to + .45. With average final grades in second year pharmacy (N=47) coefficients of correlation of test scores ranged from .28 to .61. The subtests tended to correlate more highly with grades in those courses which required more reading. (8) Coefficients of correlation between both subtest and median scores and the Otis S.A.Test of Mental Ability, Higher Form A, administered in the fall of 1946, for a sample of 105, ranged from -.07 to + .71. There is some support for the hypothesis that the relationship between the scores on the two tests may be due to the nature of the common factor of the Iowa tests as revealed by factor analysis. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

This study is concerned with children who, when everything seems favorable, do not learn to read as well as expected. Numerous factors have been investigated in relation to reading retardation. They are discussed and include defects in vision, audition, speech, health, and neurological structure. Emotional, environmental, educational, and social problems, as well as electroencephalographic patterns, have also been studied. In view of the spatial relationships, and directional concepts, involved in learning written language, it was felt that spatial orientation and visuo-motor behavior might be related to reading difficulties in children. The present study was set up to investigate general orientation in space, and electroencephalographic patterns which might be related. Four hypotheses were formulated: 1. The laterality of retarded readers will not be as strongly established as that of the controls. 2. Retarded readers will show more confusion of spatial orientation than will controls. 3. The visuo-motor behavior of retarded readers will be faulty or unusual in comparison to that of the control group. 4. There will be a greater number of abnormal EEGs among the retarded readers than among the controls. It will also be able to differentiate the groups on the basis of EEG characteristics. Two groups of children, ten in each, between the ages of eight to eleven inclusive, were selected from the case files of the child Guidance Clinic, and Metropolitan Health Committee. One group was chosen on the basis of a history of reading retardation, the other group, on the absence of any such history. A number of tests were given to each subject, for the various categories into which the study was divided. A. Oral, silent, and mirror reading tests were used to establish and compare the reading ability of the groups. B. To determine lateral preference, twenty-four preference tests were given. C. To determine the status of spatial orientation U type stylus mazes were used. Subjects were blindfolded while learning them. D. To determine the status of visuo-motor behavior, the performance scale of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children, the Bender-Gestalt, the Draw-a-Person, mirror writing, and mirror drawing tests were used. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

In a comparative study of successful and unsuccessful readers near the end of first grade, reading achievement tests -were administered to one hundred nine subjects and those scoring in the upper and lower quarters of the ordered standard scores were designated as good and poor readers respectively. A battery of seven tests was administered to the fifty-four subjects thus selected. The battery was composed of two tests of visual perception (visual memory of symbols and reversal of symbols), three verbal coding tests (letters, transposition of consonant trigrams, and phonemes, blends, and phonograms), and two tests of meaningful association (vocabulary listening and sentence listening). It was found that good and poor readers were significantly different (.0001) on the subskills considered simultaneously and beyond the .02 level of significance on each of the seven subskills considered separately. Different patterns of correlation were evidenced with generally significant correlations within the clusters for poor readers but not for good readers. Regression analysis indicated that the verbal coding and meaningful association clusters made significant contributions to the prediction of reading category (successful or unsuccessful). The contribution of the visual perception cluster was also significant when it was entered before the verbal coding cluster. The subskill variables making the greatest contribution to the prediction of reading category were phonemes and vocabulary listening. All subskills with the exception of reversals were significant predictors if they were entered early in the regression analysis. Approximately 85 per cent of the variance in reading achievement as designated by successful or unsuccessful category was accounted for by the subskills tested. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

The validity of the theory of skimming as a process of looking only at the key words in continuous discourse was investigated in the present study. The primary research questions raised were whether skimming by looking only at key words is an effective reading strategy and to what extent skimming is essentially a process of disembedding key words. Attention was also given to the relationship of familiarity with the content of stimulus passages to skimming performance. The research design involved manipulating three independent variables: (1) Form of presentation of each of two stimulus passages (key words underlined; key words presented by masking the non-key words; original text with no key words identified; and no stimulus passage at all, the control group); (2) Levels of key words (three levels of redundancy reduction: syntactic, lexical and morphological, and anaphoric or discourse redundancy); and (3) Familiarity with content of the stimulus passage (pretest familiarity: Pretest and No« Pretest; and amount of background information: High, Middle, or Low Pretest scores). The criterion measure for each stimulus passage was a set of multiple-choice questions which were administered as a pretest (Pretest group only) and as a posttest following the skimming task(s). The dependent variables were the posttest raw scores and the information gain scores (posttest score minus pretest score). Scores on the VanWagenen Rate of Comprehension Scale were used as a covariate. Grade 11 subjects were randomly assigned to Pretest and No-Pretest groups in the first experimental session. Within these respective groups the Ss were randomly assigned to one of seven treatments for the second session at which the Ss were directed to skim two passages (science and history) under a time-limit condition. The results of this study indicate that: 1. Familiarity with the content of the reading materials is one of the important factors involved in the skimming process. It was observed that familiarity with the content could be induced by exposure to a related pretest. In fact, skimming was effective only when there was cueing via exposure to the pretest and then only on the science passage- Overall, skimming did not appear to be an effective reading strategy on the history passage. As predicted, having a greater amount of background information did facilitate skimming on the science passage. 2. Elimination of non-key words did not affect skimming performance on the science passage at any level of redundancy reduction. Therefore, since no significant effects were observed either due to having non-key words eliminated or to the amount of redundancy reduction (levels of key words), it was concluded that grade 11 Ss are able to gain information through skimming by looking only at key words in continuous discourse. Contrary to expectations, however, having key words identified did not facilitate skimming at any level of redundancy reduction. Consequently, skimming cannot be said to be essentially a process of disembedding key words. 3. There was no significant interaction between and among the three independent variables: forms of the passages, levels of key words, and amount of background information. Implications of the conclusions for methods and materials to be used for instruction are that (1) some materials may not be appropriately skimmed; (2) while readers may be capable of skimming-by capitalizing on the redundancy and predictability of the language, they apparently need instruction and practice in order to take advantage of these characteristics of the language in efficient information processing. The relationship between skimming and other factors such as immediate or short-term memory and practice effect should be investigated. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

The relationship between reading and spelling ability and the four symptoms of the Gerstmann syndrome was studied. A spelling test was constructed to measure the tendency of fifth grade children to make kinetic and static reversal errors in spelling. The spelling test was administered to 343 grade five children in Richmond, B.C. The reading achievement level for each child was obtained from the reading scores on the Stanford Achievement Test. The children were divided into four groups on the basis of reading achievement scores above and below 4.0 and the presence or absence of reversal errors in spelling. Ninety children, selected at random from three groups, and seven children, who comprised the fourth group, were tested for the four symptoms of the Gerstmann syndrome. The tests used to determine the presence or absence of each symptom were: (1) disorientation for right and left - eight directional commands, (2) finger agnosia - Kinsbourne and Warrington's test for finger differentiation, (3) dyscalculia - an arithmetic test to determine ability in writing numbers correctly and computing accurately, plus confirmation of the latter skill by the arithmetic achievement score on the Stanford Achievement Test, and (4) dysgraphia - Myklebustf's Picture Story Language Test. A statistical analysis of the data by the chi-square method indicated a significant relationship, at the grade five level, between reading retardation one or more years below grade placement, reversal errors in spelling, and the concomitant presence of two or more symptoms of the Gerstmann syndrome. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

This study explored the difference in field independent-dependent perception of good readers as compared with poor readers. To accomplish this, it was necessary to try to partial out or eliminate the effects of extraneous but influential variables. An attempt was made to experimentally control the following variables: (i) lack of familiarity with spoken English, (ii) visual defects, (iii) sex, (iv) age, and (v) number of years in school. The extraneous variable statistically controlled was nonreading verbal intelligence. A total of 49 second-grade boys constituted the sample of this study. Of these, 26 comprised the good-reader group and 23 the poor-reader group. They attended eight public elementary schools of Richmond, B.C. Three instruments were employed. These were the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary Battery II, Form B, "Reading Stories" subtest, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Verbal Scale), and the Children's Embedded Figures Test. The statistical techniques applied were one-way analysis of co-variance and multiple regression analysis. The main hypothesis predicted a significantly higher level of field independence among good readers than among poor readers with the effects of nonreading verbal intelligence controlled. The data did not uphold this hypothesis. A sub-hypothesis predicted a significant positive correlation between field independence and reading comprehension, when level of verbal IQ was statistically controlled. The data did not support this hypothesis. The single variable which correlated most highly with reading comprehension was nonreading verbal IQ. In addition, verbal intelligence was a considerably more valid predictor of field dependency than was reading comprehension, which accounted for almost none of the field dependency variance. The negative results and the almost non-existent relationship between reading comprehension and field dependency were discussed in terms of the scoring procedures for the CEFT. It was felt that the standardized procedure possibly invites a good deal of extraneous variance, particularly since it apparently rewards reflective responses and penalizes impulsive responses. An alternate scoring technique was proposed which might reduce the possibility of contamination by the extraneous variable of impulsivity-reflectivity in responding. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

In all lessons, teachers communicate ideas orally in their daily contact with children. In this oral presentation teachers set models for children of correct pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm of speech. Listening to these speech patterns is of primary importance to children in developing comprehension in any language arts or communication skills program. Because it places primary emphasis on interpretation, oral reading by the teacher is one approach to reading instruction aimed at developing pupil's listening and reading vocabulary and comprehension. When the teacher reads orally to the children, she can alter her speed, use inflection, emphasis and pause, and create the atmosphere essential to making the lines sound as the author probably intended them to. It is assumed that this kind of reading not only helps to increase pupils’ listening and reading vocabulary, but makes them aware of the types of content juvenile literature can offer them. The major hypotheses of this study were: (1) to determine the effect of a program of oral reading by the teacher on children's silent reading achievement, listening vocabulary; attitude toward reading; (2) to determine the relationships between each of the following factors taken in turn: silent reading achievement; listening vocabulary; attitude toward reading; intelligence; socioeconomic status; (3) to determine the differences if any, in the silent reading achievement, listening vocabulary, and attitude toward reading of boys and girls. Eight grade five teachers, each teaching two reading classes in the Vancouver schools, were utilized in this experimental study. One class taught by each teacher served as the control class and the other the experimental class. In each case both classes got the same reading lessons from their teacher. However, in the experimental group the fifty minute reading lesson was shortened to forty minutes. The teacher read a children's novel for the remaining ten minutes. The program lasted for twelve weeks. As pretests, the Gates MacGinitie Reading Tests Survey D Form M-l, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Form A, and the San Diego County Inventory of Reading Attitude were given in the first week of January, 1968. Alternate forms of the Gates MacGinitie Reading Tests Survey D and of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test together with the same form of the San Diego County Inventory of Reading Attitude were given as posttests in the last week of March, 1968. Analysis of covariance was used to determine any difference in the treatment. Product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated between the means of the gain scores on each of the dependent variables for both boys and girls in the experimental as well as in the control group. The findings did not show any significant difference in silent reading achievement, listening vocabulary and attitude toward reading between the treatment groups. In the experimental group, the boys seem to have benefited more than the girls in silent reading comprehension. The boys comprehended better than the girls after the treatment. The oral reading by the teacher seems to have nullified the influence of intelligence and socio-economic status of children of low IQ and socio-economic level. Children of these categories in the experimental group made significantly greater gains in silent reading comprehension and total silent reading achievement than children in the same categories in the control group. When socio-economic status was held constant, the relationships in the experimental group between intelligence and gain scores on each of the dependent variables were not significant. All the children in this group seemed to progress regardless of their intelligence. When intelligence was held constant, in the experimental group, the relationships between socio-economic status and gain scores on each of the dependent variables were not significant. However, the negative significant relationships between socio-economic status and gain scores in silent reading speed and accuracy and socio-economic status and total silent reading achievement for the girls of low socio-economic level indicates that these girls improved in these two aspects or reading achievement. Also, the boys as well as the girls of low socio-economic level progressed in their total silent reading achievement. These findings seem to suggest that boys particularly need some kind of reading materials which increase their background of reading vocabulary and comprehension. Also, children of low IQ and socio-economic level seem to need some acquaintance with unfamiliar words, phrases and sentence structures which provide background for their later silent reading. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate