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50 Years of ERIC
50 Years of ERIC
The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) is celebrating its 50th Birthday! First opened on May 15th, 1964 ERIC continues the long tradition of ongoing innovation and enhancement.

Learn more about the history of ERIC here. PDF icon

Showing all 6 results
Why Do Children Differ in Their Development of Reading and Related Skills?
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Olson, Richard K.; Keenan, Janice M.; Byrne, Brian; Samuelsson, Stefan – Scientific Studies of Reading, 2014
Modern behavior-genetic studies of twins in the United States, Australia, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom show that genes account for most of the variance in children's reading ability by the end of the 1st year of formal reading instruction. Strong genetic influence continues across the grades, though the relevant genes vary for reading…
Descriptors: Reading Skills, Skill Development, Child Development, Genetics
The Role of Text Memory in Inferencing and in Comprehension Deficits
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Hua, Anh N.; Keenan, Janice M. – Scientific Studies of Reading, 2014
Comprehension tests often compare accuracy on inferential versus literal questions and find inferential harder than literal, and poor comprehenders performing worse than controls. Difficulties in integration are assumed to be the reason. This research explores another reason--differences in memory for the passage information underlying the…
Descriptors: Reading Comprehension, Reading Tests, Memory, Inferences
Choice of Reading Comprehension Test Influences the Outcomes of Genetic Analyses
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Betjemann, Rebecca S.; Keenan, Janice M.; Olson, Richard K.; DeFries, John C. – Scientific Studies of Reading, 2011
Does the choice of test for assessing reading comprehension influence the outcome of genetic analyses? A twin design compared two types of reading comprehension tests classified as primarily associated with word decoding (RC-D) or listening comprehension (RC-LC). For both types of tests, the overall genetic influence is high and nearly identical.…
Descriptors: Reading Comprehension, Listening Comprehension, Siblings, Genetics
Genetic and Environmental Influences on Vocabulary and Reading Development
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Olson, Richard K.; Keenan, Janice M.; Byrne, Brian; Samuelsson, Stefan; Coventry, William L.; Corley, Robin; Wadsworth, Sally J.; Willcutt, Erik G.; DeFries, John C.; Pennington, Bruce F.; Hulslander, Jacqueline – Scientific Studies of Reading, 2011
Genetic and environmental relations between vocabulary and reading skills were explored longitudinally from preschool through Grades 2 and 4. At preschool there were strong shared-environment and weak genetic influences on both vocabulary and print knowledge but substantial differences in their source. Separation of etiology for vocabulary and…
Descriptors: Reading Comprehension, Genetics, Word Recognition, Etiology
Reading Comprehension Tests Vary in the Skills They Assess: Differential Dependence on Decoding and Oral Comprehension
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Keenan, Janice M.; Betjemann, Rebecca S.; Olson, Richard K. – Scientific Studies of Reading, 2008
Comprehension tests are often used interchangeably, suggesting an implicit assumption that they are all measuring the same thing. We examine the validity of this assumption by comparing some of the most popular reading comprehension measures used in research and clinical practice in the United States: the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT), the two…
Descriptors: Reading Comprehension, Listening Comprehension, Age, Oral Reading
Comprehending the Gray Oral Reading Test without Reading It: Why Comprehension Tests Should Not Include Passage-Independent Items
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Keenan, Janice M.; Betjemann, Rebecca S. – Scientific Studies of Reading, 2006
We examined the validity of the comprehension component of the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT; Wiederholt & Bryant, 1992, 2001) by assessing whether reading really is required to answer its questions. The extent to which GORT questions are passage independent was assessed by having participants answer them without reading the passages. Most…
Descriptors: Reading Comprehension, Oral Reading, Reading Tests, Test Items