Working from previous findings that learning of paired nouns improves when the nouns are joined by a verb rather than a preposition, and by a preposition rather than a conjunction, the present study investigates the factors influencing this form-class effect and offers an explanation in terms of transformational grammar. (Author/FWB)

Second and sixth graders were asked to learn noun pairs linked by various types of verbal connectives: Verbs, unmarked and marked comparative adjectives, polar antonym adjective pairs, and conjunctions. Results indicated that all contexts produced better learning than conjunctions, that comparative adjective effects were superior to the polar-pair…

In a paired associate task, readers and prereaders were taught five words as oral responses, each word paired with a distinctive nonsense figure. The results raise doubts about the effectiveness of teaching beginning readers sight vocabulary words printed on flash cards. (RC)

Results indicated that variations in deep structure grammatical relations but not surface structure complexity influenced noun pair retrieval. (Author)

Mnemonic value of spellings in a paired-associate sound learning task was examined in first and second graders. Learning was fastest when correct spellings were seen or imagined. The preferred interpretation was that spellings are effective because they provide readers with orthographic images for symbolizing and storing sounds in memory.…