developmental reading experiment with ninth grade students in the Sylvester, Georgia high school

"There is no stage in a person's growth and development when he can say: 'I have mastered reading.' In fact, 'Learning to read,' as the philosopher-poet Goethe aptly said when he was eighty, 'is a life-time process. I have been at it all my life, and I cannot yet say I have reached the goal.' To accept these findings of research in reading means change, a change for the teachers, the pupils, the citizens and the community. While waiting for these changes to be implemented it seems opportune to make a beginning. And so, without the aid of a reading expert of consultant, with only slight outlay of material, and without noticeable change in the school curriculum, a reading experiment which set as its goal, general improvement in reading was initiated in the ninth grade English class. There were several purposes of the study, and while the most important was to improve the reading abilities of the pupils, definite goals were set up in three major types of reading. Particularly stressed were (1) developmental reading with its activities in which learning to read was the main goal, (2) functional reading which included all types of reading to get information, and (3) recreational reading with activities designed to encourage enjoyment and appreciation. Throughout the experiment each of the three types of reading was stressed, yet, there was more or less a balance kept among them"--Introduction.