The Comprehensive School Mathematics Program (CSMP) is a program of CEMREL, Inc., one of the national educational laboratories, and was funded by the National Institute of Education (NIE). Its major purpose is the development of curriculum materials for kindergarten through grade 6. CSMP was developed as a curriculum for ordinary classroom use,…

An outline is provided of the contents and boundaries of three areas of competence, or systems of knowledge, that are to be minimally included in a theory of communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Grammatical competence is concerned with the rules of sentence grammar and sentence…

The language problems of foreign teaching assistants (TAs) at American universities are formidable. At UCLA, the ESL Section of the English Department has responded to the needs of foreign TAs through the development of an advanced course in oral communication that focuses on teaching-related skills. A research project has been undertaken as well.…

Following a brief discussion of some characteristics of the Amish culture, data on work study skills from the Iowa Test of Basic Skills are reported for 23 pupils in grades 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 in Pleasant Hill School near Bloomfield, Iowa. Percentile ranks ranged from 5 to 83. Eleven pupils scored above the fifteenth percentile on map skills and on…

The document offers a historical perspective, practical suggestions, and guidelines for assessment, placement, and programming of bilingual handicapped students. Chapter 1 on the scope of the problem looks at student, personnel, and instrument variables affecting assessment of bilingual exceptional students. Among the factors discussed are…

A technique for measuring the acquisition of Spanish skills is described. The technique is designed for fourth-year advanced Spanish students enrolled in business Spanish. It not only tests the students but promotes learning by requiring the use of new vocabulary items and comprehension of printed texts. Students are given a text with 25 to 30…

Background information and resources to help students in grades 9-12 in Texas pursue an individual study contract in applied music is presented. To fulfill a contract students must publicly perform from memory, with accompaniment as specified, three selections from a list of approved music for their chosen field (instrument or voice). Material…

Noting that a rich vocabulary comes from experiences and from the organizing and reorganizing of these experiences, this paper suggests ways that students may be helped to improve their vocabulary at an accelerated pace. The paper first argues that vocabulary development must be a planned program beginning in the early grades and explores some of…

Forty-seven third grade regular class boys rated as disruptive by teachers were administered three tests to determine incidence of perceptual deficits as well as effects of race and social class on auditory discrimination. (MC)

Discussion of an item analysis on 40 questions given to 10-year-olds, and presented in a previous issue, is completed. In general, teachers' expectaions of the most important problems and student performance agreed. Several questions on decimals, area, and volume proved most difficult. Limitations of the study are noted. (LS)

This study examined the effects of using either object-form or paper/pencil versions of reading-readiness tests on the test scores of kindergarten children from low, middle, and high socioeconomic strata. Of 453 kindergarten students that were classified into the three socioeconomic strata, 35 boys and 35 girls were randomly selected from each…