Cooperative Study of Reading 



11 



The Silent Reading Tests 



At the time that the pupils were tested in oral reading, 

 other tests were given to determine how rapidly they read 

 silently and to what extent they understood what was read. 

 The materials used in the silent reading tests consisted of 

 three short selections, each less than three hundred words 

 in length. These selections formed a series of increasing dif- 

 ficulty. The first was appropriate for second and third grade 

 pupils ; the second for fourth, fifth, and sixth grade pupils ; 

 and the third for seventh and eighth grade pupils. 



The selections used for the tests were printed on cards so 

 that they could be easily handled. Each selection was printed 

 in three sections. The middle section contained one hundred 

 words in the case of the easiest selection and two hundred 

 words in the case of each of the two more difficult selections. 

 The section at the left of the middle section serves a double 

 purpose: first, it gives the pupil something to read by way 

 of preparation for the test part of the passage ; secondly, the 

 tester can readily determine the moment at which the reader 

 moves his eyes from the bottom of the card to the top of the 

 card where the words upon which the time record is based 

 begin. In the following passages the ends of sections are 

 indicated by the short horizontal lines. The passages used 

 are as follows: 



Tiny Tad 



(for second and third grades) 



Tiny Tad was a queer little fellow with only two legs and a short 

 tail. He was nearly black, too, and much smaller than most tadpoles 

 in the big pond. He could hardly wait for his front legs to grow. 



"When I have them all," he said, 'Til leave this dirty water and 

 go up into the orchard. What fun it will be to hop and hop and hop. If 

 only I had a little brother to hop with me, I should be so happy." 



It wasn't long before his legs began to grow. He moved about and 

 kicked around until his legs were quite strong. "I am going out on 

 the bank to see if I can hop," he said one night when he was just six 

 weeks old. 



The sun was hardly up the next morning when a 



little toad jumped 



out of the water and hopped up on the bank. He was very small, but 

 none too small for the little legs that wabbled under him. It was Tiny, 

 the young toad. 



