Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

At present, there is virtually no empirical evidence of the success of educational techniques designed to minimize the interference of black English on the acquisition of reading skills. The 180 black, inner-city third and fifth graders who participated in this study were selected in order to determine whether the discrepancy between performance on reading tasks, presented in standard English, black English standard orthography, and black English nonstandard orthography, varies with grade level. Subjects were administered equivalent listening comprehension, oral reading, and oral reading comprehension tasks in standard English and black English. An analysis of data suggests that, while there is no significant difference between the correlations between scores for standard and black English forms of the listening comprehension tasks at either grade level, correlations between scores for standard English, black English standard orthography, and black English nonstandard orthography forms of the oral reading and oral reading comprehension tasks were significantly higher at the fifth-grade level than at the third-grade level. (KS)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert