overall: .1 cm x 10.8 cm x 28 cm; 1/32 in x 4 1/4 in x 11 1/32 in
Object Name:
Pamphlet
Date made:
1949
Description:
Gertrude H. Hildreth (1898-1984) and Nellie L. Griffiths (1893-1977) developed a battery of six tests to measure the readiness of preschool children for first grade. It was given to groups of children, required some materials other than the tests themselves, and was to be administered over several days. This pamphlet gives directions for administering the tests – there is no example of the examinations. The first test involved word meanings – selecting a picture that matched a word spoken by the examiner. The second required matching a picture to the meaning of a sentence. The third required matching a picture to a description given by the examiner and was described as a test of information. The fourth sought to measure number knowledge, the sixth the ability to copy. The test came in two forms – R and S. These directions are for Form R. This ordering of the tests is quite different than in the 1933 first edition. The directions, like the MRT itself, were published by World Book Company of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. That company copyrighted this direction sheet in1948 and 1949.
Hildreth and Griffiths participated in later editions of the test into the 1960s and versions of the examination are still available today.
Born in Indiana, Hildreth received her AB from North Central College (1920), her MA from the University of Illinois (1921) and her PhD. from Columbia University (1925). From 1925 to 1945 she was the staff psychologist at the Lincoln School of Columbia and taught at Columbia on occasion. From 1945 to 1965 she was on the faculty at Brooklyn College. She later taught at the American University in Beirut and at Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina. Born in Missouri, Nellie Lucy Griffiths obtained her master’s degree at the University of Chicago in 1927. She spent her career at North Texas State Teachers College (later North Texas State University) where she not only was on the faculty in education but established a reading laboratory and supervised the laboratory school.
References:
Griffiths, N.L., “A History of the Organization of the Laboratory School of the University of Chicago,” unpublished master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1927.
Nellie L. Griffiths Collection, North Texas State University, Denton, Texas.
Harrison, M. Lucille, <I>Reading Readiness</I>, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1939. The version of the Metropolitan Readiness Tests that was copyrighted in 1933 is described in detail on pp. 75-80.
“Hildreth, Gertrude M.,” <I>Biographical Dictionary of Modern American Educators</I>, eds. F. Ohles, S.G. Ohles, S.M. Ohles, and J.G. Ramsay, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997, pp. 158-159.
“Dr. Gertrude Hildreth, A Child Psychologist,” <I>New York Times</I>, March 9, 1984, p. D15.
“Dr. Gertrude Howell Hildreth,” <I>Washington Post</I>, March 10, 1984, p. B4.
