An examination of phonemic processing abilities in children during their first-grade year.

The present study examined the development of reading and phonological processing abilities of 209 first graders (118 males, 91 females; mean age = 86.7 months) assessed during the first and last quarters of their first-grade year. The children were arranged into three different groups based on their Time 2 reading and intelligence data (children with and without reading disabilities, and "garden-variety" poor readers). Analyses indicated that the children with reading disabilities and the garden-variety poor readers did not differ significantly on many of the tasks, but both performed differently than the children without reading disabilities. Developmental analyses indicated that all three groups increased their reading and phonological skills; however, the gap between the performance of the children without reading disabilities and the other two groups widened from Time 1 to Time 2. The most important finding of the present study concerned the classification results of the discriminant analysis, which correctly identified the group membership of 207 of the 209 children (99.04% correct).

Survival of coliform bacteria in static compost piles of dairy waste solids intended for freestall bedding.

Dairy waste solids separated from a slurry by a centrifugal separator were composted in 12 static piles. Seven of the compost piles were naturally aerated, and five were aerated by a fan that forced air through the piles of solids. The natural aeration process aged the manure solids in an unconfined pile. The fan in the forced aeration process forced air into a perforated plenum beneath the compost piles. Dairy waste solids in each compost pile were heated into the thermophilic temperature range and generally composted well. At most sampling points, coliform bacteria declined to low or undetectable numbers early in the composting period. However, as the composting process proceeded, bacterial numbers increased to approximately those present in raw dairy waste solids. Findings of this study suggest that composting offers little benefit toward net reduction in coliform bacterial numbers in dairy waste solids.