In the first years of life, as children observe, imitate, and interact with people and their environment, the brain is structuring a foundation for vocabulary, values, cognitive processes, and social skills. Educators, you can help influence that development by teaching the skills and dispositions of intelligent, creative, effective decision…

Provides suggestions for activating prior knowledge, getting children to be aware when their comprehension is lagging, and tying it all together at the end. (FL)

During writing conferences, many teachers impose their own ideas and attitudes on the student's essay, and often are not sure how else to help their students arrive at changes that will improve their writing. Understanding or assessment of a student's prior knowledge about the topic can be very helpful to a teacher in shaping the conference and…

Prereading teaching strategies that help students connect schemata in their head with the information on the page are important components of reading instruction. Three prereading strategies that serve the purpose of stimulating linking activity are posing related questions, presenting reaction statements, and introducing concept stimuli. Related…

Describes 10 categories of inferences and proposes a three-step procedure for teaching students to make inferences while reading. (HOD)

Argues that children develop knowledge in layers, increasing those layers each time the topic is covered. Reviews three sets of materials that provide a background of experience, vocabulary, and text structure for use in science instruction. (FL)

Noting that researchers in the fields of cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and linguistics are taking a constructivist view of reading comprehension, this paper undertakes a comparison of that view with views concerning comprehension that have been expressed at the Claremont Reading Conferences over the past 50 years. The first…

The procedures described in this report are designed to help students both develop and apply effective behaviors for understanding expository text by means of gloss--a technique that involves the use of marginal notes and other intratext notations to direct readers' attention to places in the text where the application of specific skills and…

Describes semantic mapping, an effective strategy for vocabulary instruction that involves the categorical structuring of information in graphic form and requires students to relate new words to their own experience and prior knowledge. (HOD)

Presents a series of standard demonstrations as examples of activities that can be used to introduce multiple concepts and tie different sections of an introductory physics course together. Contributes to changes in classroom dynamics by stimulating student engagement and encouraging inclusivity. (Contains 23 references.) (DDR)

Describes an instructional procedure based on the findings of schema research and illustrating the truth that the more students know about a subject, the better they can comprehend what they read about that subject. (FL)

Describes a schema-theoretic view of how analogies enhance students' prior knowledge; reviews some of the recent studies using analogies to assist students' comprehension of science text; and illustrates the use of an analogical study guide in biology. (HOD)

Examines the concept of the cognitively active learner and discusses the following categories of learning strategies: rehearsal, elaboration, organization, comprehension monitoring, and affective. (NKA)

Intended for elementary and secondary school teachers, supervisors, curriculum specialists, and researchers, this report presents the proceedings of an institute on the Learning from Text Project sponsored by the University of California and the California State University systems. After an introduction by institute chairperson Deborah Hancock,…

Noting that teachers sometimes fail to draw on students' prior knowledge, this guide focuses on helping teachers both to think about the cognitive processes involved in learning and to design activities that provide students with a solid introduction to various learning tasks. The first section briefly discusses current theory and research in…