MOVING PICTURES AID TO FRESHMAN READERS

Sixteen Freshmen showed marked improvement in reading ability and grades after eight weeks of training with a new corrective motion-picture technique at the School of Education.

The new film process forces the eye to follow lightning like motions and thus increase agility and flexibility.

Rise In Marks

By using sixteen Yardlings with the same college board record as that of the "guinea pigs" as controls, the clinic established beyond a doubt that the special training caused a rise in the grades of the slow readers from the November Hours to Mid-Years.

A year was spent in the perfection of the motion-picture technique, and although, as it now stands, the process is complete, all its ramifications and possibilities have not been investigated. By April, it is hoped, according to Professor Walter F. Dearborn, Director of the Psycho-Educational Clinic, and head of the experiment, "that films suitable for the fourth and fifth grades will be on hand."

Eye Movements Cut

The principle of the training involves a discovery made several years ago by the School of Education. It was found that the success and speed of a reader varies as the number of stops he must make for each line of type read. The number of halts of the Yardlings used for the research was reduced from ten to six in the short period in which they have been working.

The photographic end of the training device has been completed by the Harvard Film Society, the same organization that has been experimenting with micro-film in Widener Library.