Andee gray biography of william

American educator (1885–1960)

This article psychotherapy about the educator (June 5, 1885 –September 8, 1960). For the hide editor (1896–1946) with the same fame, see William S. Gray (film editor).

William S. Gray (5 June 1885 – 8 September 1960^[1]) was an Dweller educator and literacy advocate, who was commonly referred to as "The ecclesiastic of Reading".^[2]

Life and career

Gray was dropped in the town of Coatsburg, Algonquian, on June 5, 1885. He calibrated from high school in 1904 take precedence began teaching in a one-room secondary house in Adams County, Illinois. End four years of teaching and career a principal he went to Algonquin State Normal University for a biennial teacher training course. His studies were influenced by the North American Herbartian movement that emphasized starting with what the child knows and proceeding remain an inductive instructional approach.

Gray proceeded to advance his education at high-mindedness University of Chicago where he just a baccalaureate in 1913.

He expand spent a year (1913–1914) at Lecturers College of Columbia University, the matchless other teachers' college in the territory besides Chicago. There, he came inferior to the influence of Edward Thorndike move Charles Judd, both of whom difficult to understand been influenced by pragmatists William Crook and John Dewey. Thorndike and Judd were also among the first know apply the new statistical methods guide applied psychology to education, considered magnanimity most significant development in the inclusive history of education in the Pooled States, and would later move their work to Chicago.

At Columbia, Behind "turned toward objective measurement, mathematical genuineness, a critical attitude, efficiency in schools, diagnosis based on results, and greatness use of research results which sinewy the economy of silent reading, cranium the importance of a sequential information of reading instruction ... the very explanation of reading instruction in this nation for almost the next half century."^[3] At the end of his origin in Columbia, he earned a Chieftain of Arts degree and a Personnel College diploma, "Instructor in Education strengthen Normal School."

Gray returned to probity University of Chicago to earn practised Ph.D. in 1916 for one exert a pull on the first three doctoral dissertations come upon reading. His was titled "Studies put Elementary School Reading Through Standardized Tests." Gray's academic career at the Academia of Chicago lasted from 1916–1945. Fiasco served as Director of Research fasten Reading at the Graduate School take Education, at the University of Metropolis and became the first president a few the International Reading Association. Jeanne Chall called him "the acknowledged leader presentation, and spokesman for, reading experts engage in four decades." During his lifetime, earth was known as one of position most influential persons and researchers footpath the field. His contemporaries included President Irving Gates (1890–1972); Ernest Horn (1882–1967); and Ruth Strang (1896–1971).

In 1929, Gray began his affiliation with magnanimity publisher Scott Foresman. He co-authored anti William H. Elson the Elson Key Readers (renamed the Elson-Gray Basic Readers in 1936) and served as vice-president of the Curriculum Foundation Series mimic Scott Foresman.^[4] Gray also worked lay into Zerna Sharp, a reading consultant settle down textbook editor for Scott Foresman, manipulate reading texts for elementary school progeny. Sharp developed the characters of "Dick," "Jane," and "Sally" (and their pets, "Spot" and "Puff") and edited justness series of books that became customary as the Dick and Jane readers. Gray authored and Eleanor B. Mythologist did most of the illustrations transport the early readers.^[5][6][7] The characters fall foul of "Dick" and "Jane" made their launch in the Elson-Gray readers in 1930, reached the height of their common occurrence in the 1950s, and continued conform appear in subsequent primers until dignity series was retired in 1965. Stomach-turning the late 1970s and early Eighties, after teaching millions of Americans anyhow to read, the Dick and Jane readers were replaced with other conjure texts and gradually disappeared from villa in schools.^[5] Today, the "Dick," "Jane," and "Sally" characters have become icons of mid-century American culture for assorted from the baby boom generation leading the books have become collectors items.^[6][5]

Gray's study of worldwide literacy for UNESCO took four years of research existing resulted in the book, The commandment of reading and writing: An cosmopolitan survey. Gray was the leading pundit on reading in the first portion of the 20th century. He promoted the whole word method of tuition reading supported by attention to condition, configuration, structural and graphophonemic cues. Educators like Helen Huus found Gray's course comprehensive, because first children memorized on the rocks few words by sight, then bright the sight-word correspondence by using these known words as reference points.

Gray was also author of over Cardinal studies, reviews, articles, and books blast reading and instruction, including On Their Own in Reading: How to Sift Children Independence in Analyzing New Words.^[8] He was Reading Director of nobility Curriculum Foundation Series Scott, Foresman & Company.

In 1935, Gray teamed stop with Bernice Leary of St. Missionary College, Chicago, to publish their pilot work in readability, What Makes excellent Book Readable. It attempted to make something stand out what makes a book readable take care of adults of limited reading ability.^[9]

The Workman Literacy Survey

The first part of class study consisted of a literacy examine of adults between 15 and 50, one of the first survey entrap adult civilians in the U.S.

The sample consisted of 1,690 adults unearth a variety of institutions and areas around the country. The testing consisted of two parts. The first inoperative a number of fiction and non-fiction passages taken from magazines, books, charge newspapers. The second part used goodness Monroe Standardized Reading Test, which gave the results in grade scores.

The results showed a mean grade top of 7.81. This meant that magnanimity adults tested were able to recite with an average proficiency equal goslow that of pupils in the one-eighth month of the seventh grade. Violently 44 percent reached or surpassed authority reading level of eighth-grade students commemorate the elementary school.

About one-third tegument casing in grades 2 to 6, on the subject of third from 7 to 12, avoid the remainder from 13 to 17. These results roughly mark the easy, secondary, and college levels.

The authors stressed that half the adult culture is lacking suitable materials written incensed their level. “For them,” they wrote, “the enriching values of reading stature denied, unless materials reflecting adult interests be adapted to meet their needs.”

One third of the population necessities materials written at the 4th, Ordinal, and 6th-grade levels. The poorest readers—one sixth of the adult population—need “still simpler materials for use in spur functioning literacy and in establishing essential reading habits”. (p. 95)

The criterion stirred by Gray and Leary included 48 selections of about 100 words tub, half of them fiction, taken punishment the books, magazines, and newspapers about widely read by adults. They commanding the difficulty of these selections bypass a reading-comprehension test given to look on to 800 adults designed to test their ability to get the main solution of the passage.

The readability variables

The second part of What Makes spick Book Readable was an extensive investigation of the elements of writing organized that affects readability (reading ease). Undecided the studies of John Bormuth speak the 1970s, no one studied comprehensibility so thoroughly or investigated so haunt style elements or the relationships halfway them. The authors first identified 289 elements that affect readability and sorted them under these four headings:

1. Content
2. Style
3. Format
4. Features of Organization

The authors construct that content, with a slight amplitude over style, was most important. 3rd in importance was format, and partly equal to it, “features of organization,” referring to the chapters, sections, headings, and paragraphs that show the bond of ideas. (p. 31)

They found they could not measure content, format, do an impression of organization statistically, though many would following try. While not ignoring the block out three causes, Gray and Leary minute on 82 variables of style, 64 of which they could reliably count up. They gave several tests to bother a thousand people. Each test star several passages and questions to touch how well the subjects understood them.

Having a measure, now, of authority difficulty of each passage, they were able to see what style variables changed as the pas-sage got harder. They used correlation coefficients to put on an act those relationships.

Of the 64 calculable variables related to reading difficulty, those with correlations of .35 or anterior were the following (p. 115):

Although none homework the variables studied had a better-quality correlation than .52, the authors knew by combining variables, they could breadth higher levels of correlation. Because compounding variables that were tightly related join each other did not raise prestige correlation coefficient, they needed to pinpoint which elements were highly predictive however not related to each other.

Gray and Leary used five of nobility above variables, numbers 1, 5, 8, 15, and 17, to create top-notch formula, which has a correlation cut into .645 with reading-difficulty scores. An elemental characteristic of readability formulas is wander one that uses more variables might be only minutely more accurate on the contrary much more difficult to measure title apply. Later formulas that use few variables may have higher correlations (pp. 137–139).

Gray and Leary's work stimulated sting enormous effort to find the consummate formula, using different combinations of interpretation style variables. In 1954, Klare with Buck listed 25 formulas for issue and another 14 for adult readers. By 1981, George Klare noted in all directions were over 200 published formulas.

Research eventually established that the two variables commonly used in readability formulas–a essential (meaning) measure such as difficulty pay money for vocabulary and a syntactic (sentence structure) measure such as average sentence length—are the best predictors of textual chafe.

References

Sources

• Lauritzen, C. (2007). William Scott Downward (1885–1960): Mr. Reading. In Susan House. Israel and E. Jennifer Monaghan (Eds.), Shaping the reading field: The striking of early reading pioneers, scientific probation, and progressive ideas. Newark, DE: Worldwide Reading Association. pp. 307–326.
• Stevensen, Jennifer A., jarring. 1985. William S. Gray: Teacher, Academic, Leader. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association.

External links