Focuses on the nature of understanding by detailing the process of clinical interviewing. Examples from experiential learning in curriculum and teacher development lead to discussion of curriculum activity that celebrates the complexity of subject matter and the value of engaging learners in pursuing their own learning. (SK)

The measurement of a pupil's comprehension development from literal comprehension to evaluation focused on two questions: (1) How do we measure the various types of comprehension? and (2) How should we measure the various types of comprehension? Literal comprehension is presently measured by the recall or memory-type question. However, one should…

An exploration of children's responses to some of the Caldecott prize-winning books, using a Piagetian-type interview. An attempt is made to find out why some children are "turned off" by books that, from all ostensible evidence, are of high quality. (CS)

To determine to what extent children of preschool age comprehend the meaning of logical connectives, 64 5- and 6-year-olds were told to hand differently colored and shaped wooden blocks to an experimenter. The commands involved various English idioms used for conjunction (e.g. both black and round), disjunction (either black or round), and…

Based on a study of 50 children between the ages of 3;0 and 5;6, the reasons for the differential difficulty of various forms of "who,""why,""when," and "how" questions are postulated. (EJS)

In this study comprehension of sentences describing two events occurring simultaneously or in sequence was assessed in 5-, 7- and 9-year-old children. The sentences were at three different levels of linguistic complexity, differing only in whether simultaneity or sequentiality was described. Subjects were kindergarten, second, and fourth grade…

Many writers have suggested that comprehension occurs at several levels (e.g., literal, inference, and conclusion). However, many teachers spend as much as two-thirds of their time on lower-level skills such as phonics and literal-level comprehension skills. Some authors have suggested ways of assisting readers in achieving comprehension at more…

This study examined how children of different ages process social information from dramatic television programs. Second and eighth graders were shown edited versions of a television program that differed in complexity and the difficulty of inferring causal connections between the scenes. In addition, the scenes in half of the showings were kept in…