Effectiveness of a College Reading Program.

This study evaluated the reading component of a compensatory education program designed to aid college students whose skills are not sufficient to meet the demands of required English and other courses in the basic studies curriculum. The reading course is required for students who score below 550 on the SAT verbal subtest and who score poorly on the comprehension subtest of the Cooperative English Tests. The subjects were 154 freshmen and 88 transfer students, who took the reading class in the fall of 1974. The course met three times a week during the semester and utilized two college reading texts, the students' content-area texts, and teacher-prepared materials. At the end of the semester, posttesting indicated that all students made significant gains in comprehension. For comparison of grade point averages (GPA), randomly selected records of 154 regular students were analyzed. The mean GPAs of the special freshmen, special transfers, and regular freshmen were 2.3, 2.4, and 2.6, respectively. (Author/MKM)