Social studies instruction in upper elementary school (Grades 3-5) is important for building foundational content knowledge to equip students for the secondary school curriculum. Due to numerous school initiatives and demands on the time of teachers, social studies instruction can play second fiddle to reading and mathematics instruction, which…

A broader perspective of student errors made in French sees them as departures from the scholarly norm rather than simply mistakes. Five examples are provided to help the teacher conceptualize and generalize this approach. (MSE)

Fifteen exercises are presented that are intended to increase reading comprehension in seventh and eighth graders via emphasis on word recognition, language comprehension (syntax and semantics), and reasoning skills (including inference, analogies, relationships, and direction following). (CL)

An extensive literature review led to the formation of a framework for vocabulary instruction that can be used to analyze the relationship between knowledge of word meanings and comprehension and to suggest more effective means of vocabulary instruction. The framework posits two types of information students hold about words--definitional and…

Students learn, understand, and retain knowledge best when they discover it themselves. In the area of semantics, the study of how meaning is conveyed through language, explicit knowledge may appear to be obvious once it becomes conscious, but unless people are explicitly aware of their implicit knowledge and assumptions, they may be at their…

Encourages classroom teachers to improve their students' reading and reasoning skills by helping them to interpret math problems correctly. (RAE)

This work is an attempt to explain the rationale and thinking that contributes to the "communication strategy" approach and to illustrate the practical applications of its ideas to second language teaching. It also proposes an approach to teaching based on two major goals: first, to incorporate the better features of audiolingual methods into a…

A vocabulary instruction program for intermediate grades is described. The program improves comprehension through use of such features as multiple exposures to words in various contexts and engaging students in active thinking about word meanings. This method of instruction is compared with instruction that offers only definitional information.…

This book, intended for researchers in the psychology of reading and language, college students in psychology and education, teachers of reading, and educators in general, is designed to be used in a course on the psychology of reading or the psychology of language comprehension. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "An Introduction and…

The "yes/no" method of vocabulary assessment requires students to indicate words they know from among a list of words and nonwords. Preliminary evidence gained from a study involving fifth grade students indicates that the method is superior in many ways to the multiple choice method of assessment. Analysis of "false alarms," cases in which…

Semantic mapping, which involves the application of vocabulary meanings, increases cognitive processing, and develops the cognitive structure, is recommended for use with literacy students in adult learning centers. Semantic mapping can be used as a prereading or prewriting stimulus, or as a postreading check of comprehension. Also, developing…

Recent studies on schema theory and other concepts related to reading comprehension are discussed in this paper. Noting that the psycholinguistic model of reading views reading as a process of predicting meaning based on the reader's prior knowledge of language, the paper describes recent research that has led to a definition of reading…

Designed to explore the ways language functions to help children gain access to meaning as they progress through the educational system, this journal issue views communication as a social, interactive process in which speakers and writers attempt to link into what listeners and readers know, want to know, or need to know. The 12 articles in the…