Presents study results of fifth graders' attitudes toward history. Includes interviews with the student subjects concerning what they know about history, what they want to know, and reasons to study history. Concludes that fifth graders are interested in history and familiar with the past but vague on the interpretive nature of history. (DK)

Second and fifth grade children responded to five cognitive tasks, and their parents predicted how their child and children in general would perform on each task. Parental accuracy varied across tasks; was greater for children in general than for the parents' child; and was positively related to the child's performance. (BC)

The relationship between cultural literacy and academic achievement was studied. Scores on the Cultural Literacy Assessment Test were obtained for 611 fifth graders for whom data about academic achievement were available. There was a significant positive correlation between cultural literacy and academic achievement for all ethnic and…

Describes the results of a study that used preservice teachers as tutors to provide one-on-one instruction to third, fourth, and fifth graders. Finds measurable progress in reading after one year of tutoring. (SC)

Describes a mathematical investigation for fifth-grade students that incorporates a social studies unit on the United States. Provides a method of using mathematics by applying it to other content areas. (ASK)

Examines the effects of a teaching strategy in which fifth-grade students evaluated the strengths or weaknesses of solution methods to pattern finding problems, including an experimental and control group each consisting of 34 elementary students, in Japan. The experimental group showed a significantly better performance on the retention test…

Describes a typical fifth-grade mathematics lesson as taught in a Japanese elementary school, followed by a reflective commentary focused on problem solving, using manipulative aids, and multiple solutions. (ASK)

Studies the effectiveness of the keyword method of learning vocabulary employed by students with limited English proficiency (LEP). Finds this method appears to be effective in helping LEP students to recall word definitions rapidly and efficiently, to comprehend sentences, and to retain vocabulary learning over a one-week period. (NH)

Describes a one-month sixth grade class activity with monarch butterflies called Monarch in the Classroom. Students learn about insects, especially the class material butterflies, including their life cycle, eating habits, migration, and how they overwinter. The lesson plan covers sorting animals, focusing on features, analyzing the community for…

Examines how teachers, students, and scientists construct ways of investigating and knowing science. Identifies ways that particular teaching strategies provide opportunities for student engagement. (Author/CCM)

Describes how two fifth-grade boys developed and sustained a love of fantasy books. Describes how these two discriminating readers have developed taste and a social context for their reading experience. Shows how their experience demonstrates important principles about reading and about reading curriculum. (SR)

Examines "Theater-in-Education," (TIE) a unique British-inspired teaching-and-learning methodology which combines young people's theater with creative drama, currently taught at a handful of universities in the United States. Finds that, as a result of the program's tour to 10 fifth-grade classrooms in five schools, area teachers were unanimous in…

Defines a two-stage process by which a holistic rubric is applied to the assessment of open-ended items, such as writing samples. Indicates that the use of rating augmentation can improve the inter-rater reliability of holistic assessments, as indicated by generalizability phi coefficients, correlation coefficients, and percent agreement indices.…

Explores the role of literacy and curriculum in identity construction among fifth graders. Suggests: (1) there was a coherence of perspectives about six of the students while there was less agreement for the other six students; (2) literacy was a more important feature of some students' identities than others; and (3) the literacy curriculum…

Investigates the manner in which one particular ethnic group, African American, is represented in five elementary school social studies textbooks published in 1991. Locates sections of text, identifies case relationships, and determines noun ethnicity. Finds that there were many more noun-verb relationships related to African Americans compared to…