"Transformational Coaching for Early Childhood Educators" is a reflective guidebook designed to help early childhood professionals strengthen their coaching skills and their ability to facilitate transformational learning in others. The goal of this program is for individuals to attain sustainable habits of selfreflection, critical…

This book makes explicit connections between young children's spontaneous repeated actions and their representations of their emotional worlds. Drawing on the literature on schemas, attachment theory and family contexts, the author takes schema theory into the territory of the emotions, making it relevant to the social and emotional development…

A study was made of factors that affect the comprehension of technical discourse. Results showed that when no visual was used: (1) the schematic organization enhanced comprehension and (2) students who participated in the activity outperformed those who did not participate. (CT)

Professional communicators are often called upon to announce changes at places of business and to implement them in a timely fashion. One approach that works (and minimizes confusion) is to plan carefully to achieve three key objectives: Understanding, Support, and Action (USA). To promote understanding, those who have decided on the change should…

Discusses the relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension. Cites recent research supporting the utility of both direct and indirect vocabulary instruction. (MM)

The ability to recognize and recall details about objects helps scientists figure out the answers to problems. Observational skills can be developed by sketching objects in detail. Rapid drawing can improve students' sense of important features and rapid memorization of clues about an object. (JDD)

Drawing from the conclusions of research studies by linguists and psychologists, this paper describes four classes of principles for constructing readable prose for both print materials and computer screens: (1) global principles dealing with a schema-theory approach to discourse type, with topical focus, and with parallelism; (2) sentence-level…

Reviews concepts proposed by researchers in linguistics, psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence, who have applied their knowledge and skills to the study of human information processing--i.e., memory content, storage, encoding, and retrieval. Guidelines derived from theory for use by instructional designers and subject specialists in…

Describes three theories supporting reading instruction--schema theory, the constructivist approach, and literary response theory--and offers best classroom practices that support these theories. Provides a sample lesson illustrating possible cross-curricular interactions, also considered a best practice. (EV)

Describes how an excerpt from an electronics magazine challenged the author to examine problems in reading comprehension. Notes the sources of difficulty in understanding demanding text, and states that prior knowledge--not isolated comprehension skills--is necessary to create meaning from a text. (MM)

This study investigated the effectiveness of a schema strategy on the mathematical word-problem-solving performance of four sixth- and seventh-grade students with learning disabilities. The schema strategy led to substantially improved word-problem-solving performance for all four students and these results were maintained at two- and four-week…

This manual describes two methods of assessing college students' conceptual structures in the interest of student evaluation. The focus is on the mental frameworks (conceptual structures) that enable students to remember and apply facts and theories. The guide offers two methods, the "ordered-tree" and the "fill-in-the-structure." An introduction…

Describes a heuristic conceit, "the writer's stance," to help students overwhelmed by the complexity and possibilities of a writing task regain control of the process. Stresses the need for writers to select vantage points and frames of analysis for their academic writings. (SR)

Discusses how readers process text and the implications this processing has for technical writers. Presents guidelines for designing documents so that readers can better understand and apply what they have learned from text. (JAD)

Presents an interactive instructional model of reading instruction, in which teachers have a central role in determining the goals, materials, and methods of instruction. Suggests that this approach would improve students' reading performance. (MM)