Focuses on what sixth-grade students know about the organizational features of prose and whether the use of specific organizational patterns (top-level structures) facilitates written recall of expository prose. (HOD)

The purpose of this study was to isolate factors responsible for the discrepant results reported in the advanced organizer literature, and to identify processes children employ when attempting to recall connected verbal materials. The subjects were 64 middle-class children randomly selected from a local school system. An equal number of male and…

This study investigated a psycholinguistic model of reading comprehension which attempts to relate readers' conceptual backgrounds to their ability to process syntactic structures. Specifically, the questions addressed involved the interaction between cognitive organizers and active and passive voices of verbs. Subjects included 409 third graders,…

Young children's intentional preparation for future recall of the location of an object was examined within the context of a delayed-reaction paradigm. Children older than 3 years stored the object at distinctive locations and thereby facilitated retrieval. Feedback, viewing consequences, and suggestions for strategy positively influenced…

The keyword method helped elementary school children learn Spanish vocabulary, especially when they were provided with relevant visual images. The Spanish word was associated with an English keyword sounding like the foreign word, and the picture illustrated some interaction between the keyword and the English translation. (GDC)

Issues related to the retrieval context set by rereading advance organizers (AOs) before recall tests were examined in six experiments with 57 seventh graders and 323 undergraduates. Only rereading the AO significantly affected recall. AO theory and a general perspective on encoding and retrieval contexts are discussed. (TJH)

Advance organizer effectiveness for disadvantaged seventh graders was investigated. The influence of the organizer was assessed under two testing formats: recall and recognition. The organizer was shown to be effective, regardless of the testing conditions. (Author/GK)

Preplays (critical material presented before a televised program) were inserted before three sections of a televised story to determine if they would improve children's attention and comprehension by providing overall plot structure for selecting and integrating important story events. The preplays varied on two orthogonal dimensions: presence or…

Five- and nine-year olds' (N=80) television viewing and program recall in response to learning instructions were examined. Instructions affected visual-emphasis program segments only; visual orientation and cued recall increased in younger children; and free recall and cued recall were enhanced in older children. (Author/BS)

Prose-learning strategies are classified in this paper as prose-dependent (those that authors can use to optimize communication) or processor-dependent (those that learners can use to optimize reception) and are cross-classified as stage-setting (those that prepare the learner for upcoming prose information) or storage-retrieval oriented (those…

Three experiments with 120 college undergraduates and 62 seventh graders examined the utility of inserting a delay between reading an advance organizer and its related text. A moderate delay may enhance the effects of advance organizers. Results support an "accessibility" hypothesis and do not support a "rehearsal" hypothesis.…