This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 18 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effect of illustrations on third grade students' attitudes toward the elderly; (2) visual and phonological coding in word processing by fourth, sixth, and eighth grade readers; (3) the achievement and attitudes of intermediate age children relative to their comprehension of poetry; (4) students' perceptions of teacher expectation and attitudes toward reading; (5) decoding skill and vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension; (6) the history of beginning reading instruction in the United States; (7) the reliability of phonic generalizations in five primary-level basal reading programs; (8) the effects of sound manipulation training on auditory segmentation and word recognition tasks; (9) various aspects of oral versus silent reading of selected third grade social studies passages; (10) student achievement and attitudes toward reading in two approaches to uninterrupted sustained silent reading programs; (11) learning styles and the teaching of reading; (12) patterns of oral reading across stages of word knowledge; (13) using reading to facilitate changes in nutritional behavior; and (14) differences in the acquisition of selected readiness abilities between readers and nonreaders in kindergarten. (HTH)