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The purpose of this investigation was to test whether the assembly or system model was more adequate to account for the relationships among subskills in normal and disabled readers. Thirty-eight subjects were divided into three groups. There were 19 disabled subjects with a mean chronological age of 9.17, a mean IQ of 104.84, and a mean reading level of 1.80. Ten normal-old subjects were matched to the disabled group on chronological age, 8.61, and IQ, 106.00, and the reading level of the group was 4.20. Nineteen normal-young subjects, with a mean age of 7.00, an IQ of 105.36, and a reading grade level of 1.91, (were matched with the disabled on chronological age and IQ. Criterion referenced tests of phoneme-grapheme association skills were constructed and administered to both disabled and normal readers. The strength of subskills in the disabled group was virtually identical to the comparable subskills in the normals similar in reading level. Both of these groups were inferior to normals matched on age who had completely mastered each of these skills. Intercorrelations among subskills were high positive for the normals and were largely insignificant for the disabled. (Author/WR)

The effects of immediate and delayed feedback on perseverance and learning were investigated with a 3 x 3 factorial design. It was hypothesized that delayed feedback would reduce perseverance while immediate feedback would increase it. Subjects were 72 male college students, paid for participation. They read prose sentences and completed cloze test items. Feedback on each sentence was either immediate, delayed, or omitted. A cloze retention test over the sentences was given either immediately, delayed, or was omitted. The time spent reading a continuation of the original passage was recorded as a measure of perseverance. It was found that (1) delayed feedback produced significantly (p<.05) more learning on the original task that did immediate feedback, (2) immediate feedback produced significantly (p<.01) more perseverance on the continuation passage than did delayed feedback, and (3) perseverance on the continuation passage was positively correlated (.46) with scores on a comprehension test over the continuation passage. Tables and references are included. (Author/MS)

A game designed to teach some of the skills used in behavior modification with slow learners was evaluated. The game, called "Modifying," was developed to increase the range of experience for students preparing to be special education teachers. A randomized, posttest-only design was employed. The design incorporated three treatments: conventional lecture, game and short discussion, and game with longer discussion and replay of the game. Two measures of the treatments' effects were utilized: a situational test of a special education classroom and a performance test which required each subject to teach a special education child a simple paper construction task using behavior modification. A recording was made of the number of positive reinforcements the subjects used in teaching the child. Preliminary results of the study suggest that there is a main treatment effect in favor of the game-discussion-game treatment level. (Author/JY)

A 5x2x2 factorial design, including 4 instructional treatments and a control group, 2 levels of socioeconomic status (SES), and 2 levels of IQ, was used to study methods for facilitating the formation of a one-dimensional language concept. The concept formation task required the production of instances of the concept embedded in sentences. The treatments were: rule verbalization (RV), rule application (RA), production of instances of the concept (P), and no training (NT). Subjects (Ss) were 75 Negro fifth and sixth graders run individually. The analysis of variance and post hoc comparisons indicated that treatments RA and P did not differ in effectiveness and both were significantly more effective than treatment RV. RV was significantly superior to NT. The high SES group learned in significantly fewer trials than the low SES group in all treatments except NT. On a mastery test requiring the production of instances of the concept embedded in sentences, the Ss who had attained criterion on the concept attainment task were superior to both the Ss who had failed to learn and the control group which received only the mastery test. The latter two groups did not differ significantly. These results indicate that concept formation is facilitated by the same instructional procedures for both high and low SES Ss. (Author)

The occurrence of the two allomorphs of the indefinite article in standard English ("a" before nouns or noun clauses beginning with consonant sounds and "an" before those beginning with vowel sounds) is a concept similar to those studied in the general concept formation paradigm. The acquisition of this grammatical concept was examined using 80 inner-city Negro fifth-graders. Results indicated that (1) learning the sound differences between instances and non-instances of the concept had no effect on subjects learning to effectively use instances of the concept orally; (2) learning to verbalize the grammatical rule which governs the concept did not facilitate concept formation; (3) training on the application of the verbalized rules strongly facilitated the acquisition of the ability to produce instances of the concept (p .001). The application training was superior to rule learning for low IQ but not for high IQ subjects. The ability to produce instances of the concept did not affect the ability to produce sentences containing instances of the concept. (Author/LH)

A distinction is made between the learnability and readability of text materials. Learnability refers to the extent to which new learning results from reading a passage; readability refers to the extent to which a passage is comprehended. Cleraly, comprehension can occur without new learning. Classic readability formulas use text characteristics such as word difficulty and sentence length to predict comprehension. In this study, the prediction of new learning with a variety of text variables was examined. Sixty-two sixth-grade subjects read 11 passages ranging from second- to twelfth-grade difficulty. Learning scores were based on two types of pretests and post-tests. The results of stepwise regression analyses of text characteristics on learning scores revealed that the same characteristics, including word difficulty and sentence length, which predict comprehension also predict new learning. However, more than one text characteristic in a multiple regression equation did not significantly improve the predictability over the zero order correlation. Thus, classic readability formulas may be used to estimate the learnability as well as the readability of text materials. (Author/NH)

The theoretical functions of external feedback in SR and closed loop models of verbal learning are presented. Contradictory predictions from the models are tested with a three by three factorial experiment including three types of feedback and three amounts of rehearsal. There were 90 adult students run individually and they were required to learn 39 sentences verbatim. The results were: (1) feedback facilitated learning when it followed wrong responses; (2) feedback had no effect on learning following right responses; and (3) feedback consisting of both the stimulus and the response was superior to "no feedback" whereas feedback consisting of only the response did not differ from "no feedback". The findings are discussed in relation to the two learning models and programmed instruction. (Author)

Describes the maze technique, which is designed to evaluate reading comprehension, and presents some research substantiating reliability. (RB)

Concludes that phonological coding occurs at different rates after graphemic and semantic coding. (RB)

Results of the feedback experiments reported here were: (1) feedback facilitated learning when it followed wrong responses; (2) feedback had no effect on learning following correct responses; (3) feedback consisting of both the stimulus and the response was superior to no feedback, whereas feedback consisting of only the response did not differ from no feedback. (Author/FB)

Results of stepwise regression analyses of text characteristics on learning scores revealed that the same characteristics which predict comprehension also predict new learning. (Author/MB)