Examines the effect of key concept mapping strategies on reading comprehension and writing performance of fifth grade students using basal reading materials. Concludes that key concept mapping enhances comprehension of factual/informative text, but has no effect on written composition. Finds that literary mapping strategies enhanced neither…

Examines the influence of pre-reading instruction versus prior experience on factual and inferential comprehension. Concludes that prior experience affects factual and inferential comprehension more than does pre-reading instruction, and that younger students need to have relevant knowledge externally activated, while older students can activate…

Examines the effects of teaching individual word meanings and deriving word meaning from context. Concludes that instruction in individual word meanings effectively teaches specific word meanings, training in deriving meaning from context improves students' ability to derive word meanings, and practice in either method leads to higher levels of…

Provides a lesson to familiarize students in grades four-six with the many ways that artists use the technique of collage. Students observe and discuss ways artists make use of materials other than paint on canvas. Examines how the introduction of foreign materials to a surface affects the illusion of space. (LS)

Examined fears of fifth grade students and ways in which their parents perceived the fears. Responses from 66 students and 47 parents suggest that children have more fears than parents think they have. Children reported concerns over accidents, nuclear war, and death, while parents expected children to have more fears about scary movies, the dark,…

The organization of the most effective seatwork for fifth grade mathematics instruction was characterized by: (1) sufficient preparation; (2) efficient management; and (3) high intensity of active supervision that corrected and supported students in a discrete manner. (JD)

Examines whether some of the problems that average and below average readers have in comprehending expository texts stem primarily from lack of familiarity with conjunctions or a tendency to ignore them. Reports that all reading levels benefited from the highlighting of explicit conjunctions. (MM)

Fifth graders at a Virginia school are applying new knowledge about world cultures by constructing artifacts for an Egyptian legacy exhibit. Exhibitions are a key facet of Museums-in-Progress (MIP), a program that links problem-solving activities with the real world. Students learn to develop, install, and interpret an exhibition by touring local…

Investigation of the links between understanding of the numeration system and representations of the counting sequence 1-100 of (n=77) high-ability grades 5 and 6 children revealed three dimensions of external representation: pictorial, iconic, or notational characteristics. (44 references) (MKR)

Reports on the knowledge of fifth-grade students about what they are learning about percentage. Reveals the range of comfort students had in the instructional sequence and provides suggestions for developing assessment tasks, especially student-generated problems. An appendix of sample tasks is included. (MKR)

This study, with 19 fifth graders having learning disabilities (LD) and 20 fifth graders without LD, examined cognitive and motivational variables. Although some differences between groups were found, differences in the motivational and cognitive variables generally cut across a priori categories of children with and without LD, forming three…

The relationship between the verbal ability of 50 fifth graders and the adaptive nature of questions they asked while trying to find vocabulary synonyms was studied. Those with high verbal ability asked more necessary questions and, when items were difficult, asked more unnecessary questions, probably to increase confidence. (SLD)

A study with 43 fourth graders and 32 fifth graders demonstrated that once they learned a poem to the same degree, fast and slow learners recalled about the same amount after 7 days, but when they relearned the poem, fast learners recalled more after 14 and 28 days. (SLD)

Investigated multidimensional models of self-concept. Administered Self-Description Questionnaire-I and Multidimensional Self-Concept Scale to 43 fifth and sixth graders; Self-Description Questionnaire-II and Multidimensional Self-Concept Scale to 38 eighth graders. Total scale scores were significantly correlated, reflecting similarity in…

Explores fifth graders' audience awareness when they compose and revise an original text for two audiences (a good third grade reader and an experienced adult reader) in a realistic transactional writing task. Finds that they successfully revised texts to address expectations of both audiences but were more successful for the third grade readers.…