The educator of adults is concerned not so much with the process of reading as with its effect. He owes no loyalty to any one means of learning but must consider all of them as methods or devices to be used as needed, either singly or in combination. His central aim is to help people change themselves in desirable ways; and his concern with reading or any other process depends solely on its relative usefulness in producing the hoped-for result.
The reading of adults—whether they read, how much they read, and what they read-depends on many factors of skill, habit, and motivation. But it also depends in very great measure on what is conveniently available to them to read. About 9,500 new books and about 2,500 new editions of previously issued works are published annually in the book trade in the United States. Moreover, the book trade keeps in print some 100,000 different books. The network of arrangements by which these tens of thousands of separate books, emanating from hundreds of separate sources, find their way, or more often fail to find their way, to their potential users among the adult Americans in many thousands of communities throughout the country is one of the principal determinants of reading.
The aim of communication is to share ideas, information, attitudes, and skills. The sharing may be through direct imitation of an action or indirectly by words, pictures, and other symbols. In a simple society where specialized information is rare, everyone can talk to and learn from everyone else. But in today's specialized society we have reached a point where, as Robert M. Hutchins once put it, even our anatomists cannot talk to each other unless they happen to be working on the same part of the body.
It is possible for almost any adult to improve his reading both in rate and in comprehension. In practice, most of us adopt a congenial pace in rending much below our actual capacity. And some of us read everything in the same way—a newspaper, a novel, or a conference report. In many cases, this is a snail's pace; in others it is a relatively slow rate that becomes habitual. There are, of course, large numbers of adults who read various types of material skilfully. Yet many of these people can improve their reading habits.
The more significant of Dr. Thorndike's contributions to lexicography are described in this article. Thanks to his influence, all school dictionaries now have readable type.
The author is suggesting that despite his distrust of conventional rules, Professor Thorndike, to the extent that he is himself at all unconventional, becomes so only through excess of conservatism. The question that arises is whether some connection can be traced between his practice and his opinions.
A description of the Thorndike-Lorge Reading Test. The Thorndike-Lorge Test is planned as a general test of silent reading comprehension. It includes all the important factors in silent reading with reasonable weight for each factor.
Consider these simple questions: How many English words should the ordinary boy or girl know the meanings of at the end of Grade 8? Which words should all or nearly all pupils know at that stage? In what grades and in what connections should they be learned?
A summary of The National Endowment for the Arts study "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America."
Reading instruction has been reformed successfully in the primary grades, but with no consequent improvement in adolescent literacy. This commentary asks the question: What changes can the states and federal government make to education policy that will boost adolescent reading achievement?
Focusing on high-performing early literacy teachers across multiple urban school contexts, this commentary introduces our conceptual model and one example of a high leverage early literacy practice.