How Much Do Community College Students Learn from Their Textbooks
Karen Strom Spring · The Journal of Reading · 1975
Spring is a reading and curriculum specialist at Seattle Central Community College, Seattle, Washington. ■ Teachers are in widespread agreement that low reading ability is a major problem in the community college, and findings of readability studies (for example, Cline, 1973) suggest that large numbers of community college students read below the level of their texts. To gain insight into this issue, this study attempted to find out not only 1) how difficult the textbooks used in a sampling of courses at one urban community college are, but also 2) if the difficulty that students have in reading their textbooks is a predictor of course failure or low grades. If not, 3) then how are students getting their information, and 4) how do the students themselves sub-