Whole-school or whole-class programs designed to promote positive behavior can enhance the likelihood that effective teaching and learning occur for all students. This practice guide is intended to help elementary education educators, as well as school and district administrators and parents, implement and support effective prevention-focused…

Learned helplessness is an insidious condition involving undeveloped executive functioning, lack of persistence, and an undeveloped sense of connecting new words or concepts into a web of meanings. Remedial teaching in most small-group, diagnostic/prescriptive settings encourages continued learned helplessness because students are dependent on the…

The strategies instructional approach developed at the University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities is described. The approach teaches students strategies in the academic, social, motivational, and executive functioning areas that will enable students to meet content learning demands and modifies instructional environments…

This qualitative study compared the instructional environments of a resource room and two regular classrooms for four intermediate grade students identified as severely learning disabled. Results suggested that regular classroom teachers need to provide students with LD with more explicit conceptual explanations of cognitive requirements of tasks…

This article discusses ways to improve mathematics performance of students with learning disabilities through cognitive strategies instruction. Principles of a strategic classroom environment are explained, such as involving students in goalsetting and providing advance organizers. Three specific strategies for math instruction are described:…

Based on a two-day presentation workshop on early reading and writing approaches, the 12 essays in this book discuss the development of literacy, natural approaches in developing literacy, and supporting literacy development. Essays in the book are: (1) "Theories of Natural Language" (Carolyn N. Hedley); (2) "Oral Language…

This resource book is intended to help teachers and schools enhance their teaching of thinking, and to make their teaching of thinking skills more deliberate, explicit, and an integral part of the school curricula. It challenges all educators to reflect on their involvement in teaching for thinking, teaching of thinking, and teaching about…

This book presents successful classroom practices for teaching thinking skills with children and adolescents. An introduction discusses the basic importance of cognitive processes to academic success and the importance of thinking skills programs for all students. Four fundamental concepts that underlie recent changes in curriculum and…

Based on the theory that teachers can help children to become active, responsible learners, this book emphasizes the value of the process of reflection--of analyzing and making judgments about what has happened--and explores strategies to raise awareness of reflective thinking processes. The book provides teachers with practical examples of how…

Presenting syntheses of research on effective instruction in 30 program areas, this paper is designed as a resource to assist teachers in expanding and refining their repertoire of teaching strategies and to guide instructional planning and decision making. For each program area, the paper presents a "finding" (a one-sentence statement…

Research indicates that four criteria should be considered in developing methods for teaching learning strategies to foreign language students: explicitness of purpose; content; evaluation; and integration of learner training with language training. Five English as a second language settings using learner training activities are described. (CB)

Techniques for integrating English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction and mathematics instruction, particularly the language of mathematics, are discussed. Focus here is on mathematics instruction for limited-English-speaking students in the mainstream classroom. First, examples of the academic language of mathematics that students must…