Investigates classroom environments and sense making within classrooms, using causal mapping techniques. Develops concept structures for classrooms, based on unbiased interviews. A homogeneous conception of classrooms is flawed, because participating fifth graders used highly individualistic concepts or labels to describe classroom environments.…

Examined gender differences in individual and cooperative (small-group) self-management training programs targeting mathematics performance. Findings from 33 fifth graders revealed that girls in individual training condition improved significantly less than girls in cooperative condition and boys in individual condition. Boys in cooperative…

Finds (1) significant increase in reading rate and comprehension as the number of repeated reading increased; (2) students trained to segment sentences read faster and scored higher in comprehension than students given intonation training but not to a statistically significant degree; and (3) no interaction between repeated readings and…

This study compared gifted and regular fifth graders' thoughts and concerns about the future in 1975 and today. Although gifted students were more pessimistic than regular students in 1975, today both groups are more negative about the future than earlier and the pessimism of gifted students has dramatically increased. Gifted students see a…

Shares a problem-solving activity in which the aim is to find out how fifth-grade students would approach a nontraditional problem in which several conditions had to be met. Asks teachers to consider student observations in their teaching. (ASK)

Surveys the attitudes of third- and fifth-grade students enrolled in large urban school districts towards mathematics. Indicates the need for further research to identify variables that influence the development of student perceptions and attitudes towards mathematics during elementary school. (Author/CCM)

Considers different fifth-grade students' transformations through expressing themselves with poetry. Claims the content of children's writing suggests a complete revision of standard educational ideas about who the children are, what they know, how they think, and how much they can learn if teachers only know how to tap into their brilliance. (SC)

Fifth-grade students with learning disabilities who were good (n=12) and poor (n=11) handwriters and 56 matched controls were asked to copy text under two conditions, quickly and neatly. Students with learning disabilities were not as capable of increasing writing speed and demonstrated a slower rate of speed. (Author/CR)

Assesses children's structural understanding of combinatorial problems when presented in a variety of task situations. Provides an explanatory model of students' combinatorial understandings that informs teaching and assessment. Addresses several components of children's structural understanding of elementary combinatorial problems. (Contains 50…

Discusses the integration of art and academics in a fifth-grade instructional unit on Native American culture. Describes how students studied Native American pictographs, designed their own pictographs, made their own tools, and created rock paintings of their pictographs using these tools. Provides a list of references on Native American…

Argues that mental timelines for learning history are analogous to mental mapping for learning geography: both visually represent abstract concepts. Describes the construction of a classroom timeline and activities for fifth- and sixth-grade students that incorporate the use of timelines. Notes reasonable expectations for student progress at this…

Examines the extent to which level and stability of fifth-grade children's self-esteem predicted achievement motivation and reasons for anger. Findings indicate that the more unstable the children's self-esteem, the lower their scores on measures of curiosity/interest and preference for challenge, and the greater the likelihood that they would…

Investigates the relation between comprehension skill and the ability to locate information. Results reveal that good comprehenders were more efficient than poor comprehenders when they were required to locate specific pieces of information in a text. Findings suggest that good comprehenders' superior search strategy may arise because of their…

Adopts a sociocultural perspective to investigate the role of discourse in children and teacher mathematical meaning making in a 5th grade inquiry classroom. Examines the process whereby individual and group developmental trajectories are constructed and allows exploration of the relationship between discourse and knowing. Argues for a more…

Describes the effective use of performance-based assessment for evaluating fifth- and sixth-grade student achievement as demonstrated by student exhibit presentations at a science festival. Individual evaluation scores and group negotiated evaluations were consistent. (Author/MM)