The graduating senior high school student should be one who has been trained in planning his own reading activities and one who has acquired effective study habits so that he can continue to use reading to learn. He should have become able to use reading as a guide and aid to creative endeavor so that he can lead a full, active life. He should be able to read thoughtfully and make critical judgments about what is read so that he may appraise the validity of the author's point of view and the accuracy of his statements. The high-school reading program should develop readers who can and will read for pleasure, information, and continued growth in their chosen occupations and in their social understandings.

One of the essential steps in planning a sound reading program for a high school or college is to survey and appraise the reading interests, attainments, and needs of students at the time of entrance. This is due in part to the close relationship between reading ability and school or college success and to wide variations in reading interests and abilities among students. As a result, schools and colleges are rapidly adopting the practice of making careful studies of the reading attainments of all entering students as an aid in planning their programs and in adjusting instruction to their needs.

In an article in the November, 1936, issue of THE RECORD Professor Leta S. Hollingworth described the organization and certain characteristics and purposes of the work in the Speyer Experimental School, operated under the joint auspices of Teachers College and the Board of Education of the City of New York. It is the purpose of this article to report some of the results of the work of the first term in six of the nine classes in the school.

This article is a partial report of a study of four large classes of children who were given instruction in reading soon after entering the first grade. This preliminary report is concerned primarily with the relationships of the characteristics of the pupils when they entered school and their achievements in reading during the year.