Speed reading courses and their effect on reading authentic texts: A preliminary investigation

Fluent reading is essential for successful comprehension. One dimension of reading fluency is reading rate, or reading speed. Because of the importance of reading fluency, fluency development activities should be incorporated into classroom practice. One activity that meets the fluency development conditions proposed by Nation (2007) is speed reading. An important question is whether reading speed gains measured in words per minute on controlled speed reading texts transfer to other types of texts. This paper reports on a preliminary, small-scale investigation of this question. The findings suggest that a speed reading course may contribute to faster reading speeds on other types of texts, but there remains a need for further experimental research into the impact of speed reading courses

Comparison of a watershed model (SWAT) and a groundwater flow model (GFLOW) to simulate the hydrology of two agricultural watersheds in Iowa

Predicting the effects of land-use changes on water quality is a necessary step in helping policymakers address solutions to nonpoint-source pollution. Watershed water quality models, such as the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), have been used to model not only these changes, but the hydrology of the system as well. This study compared the ability of SWAT against an analytic element, conjunctive groundwater-surface water model (GFLOW) to model the hydrology in two Iowa watersheds of contrasting hydrology. The goal was to evaluate which approach best simulated the groundwater and surface water hydrology of the watersheds. The South Fork watershed (SFW) and the Walnut Creek (WC)-Squaw Creek (SC) watershed (WCSCW) contain similar geologic materials including till, loess, paleosol, and alluvium units whose hydraulic conductivities (K) range from 10-5 to 10-10 m/s. The SFW is 78,000 ha in area, contains 85 percent row crops and is 80 percent tile drained. The WCSCW is 9,960 ha in area and is characterized by row crop production, prairie restoration, and significantly less tile drainage. Models utilized streamflow data (SWAT, GFLOW) and hydraulic head data from piezometers (GFLOW only) for calibration. In the SFW, a recharge (R) of 4.3 in/yr was able to calibrate the GFLOW model and produced a base flow of 81.2 cfs at USGS gage (05451210), while an R of 0.43 in/yr taken from the calibrated SWAT model was unable to reproduce observed hydraulic heads during the study period and resulted in a base flow of 6.8 cfs at the gage. In contrast, in the WCSCW hydraulic heads could be calibrated based on R values of 3.8 in/yr (WC) and 5.2 in/yr (SC) that are similar in both models. Groundwater discharge from SWAT (6.79 cfs at SQW2) was more similar to base flow from GFLOW (7.54 cfs at SQW2) than in the SFW. Results of this comparison suggest that groundwater recharge values taken from the SWAT-M model are not realistic in tile-drained watersheds such as SFW, but that both models simulate hydrology in the WCSCW. Due to the problem of non-uniqueness in highly-parameterized models such as SWAT, incorporation of tile-drainage into deterministic groundwater models with fewer parameters, such as GFLOW, may ultimately provide a more accurate simulation of the overall hydrology

Comments: Hypnosis in Court: A New Twist on the Old Memory Game

Law enforcement personnel have increasingly employed hypnotists to aid their criminal investigations. Under hypnosis, a witness who cannot remember a traumatic criminal encounter can be helped to resurrect the emotionally suppressed recall. Unfortunately, due to the inability of the hypnotic process to produce consistently reliable results, courts have expressed a reluctance to admit these memories into evidence. This comment examines how various jurisdictions have chosen to address the accuracy problems associated with hypno-enhanced memories. The article begins with a historical sketch of the treatment accorded hypnosis in related cases, and discusses the merit of each approach. Concluding that none of these judicial strategies has effectively resolved the issue, the author offers a novel approach aimed at finding a more appropriate resolution of the hypnosis controversy