Offers a lesson plan to teach grades four through six about the Constitutional amendments dealing with civil rights. The lesson covers four to five class periods and uses scenarios to demonstrate civil rights concepts. (BSR)

When first, fourth, and fifth grade speakers played a referential communication game with a fictitious listener, they were more likely to give redundant messages to listeners with whom they had no common shared experience or to strangers than to listeners with whom they had shared a previous experience. (RH)

Describes introductory social studies unit which involves fifth grade Adams (Nebraska) students in concrete experiences (scavenger hunt) with their local environment to enable them to relate difficult social science concepts with familiar points of reference, reverse student negativism toward social studies, and motivate students to view social…

Among kindergarten children, second-, fifth-grade, and college students, a gradual age-related increase was found in the ability to interpret an event from another person's perspective in light of that person's prior experiences. Various alternative explanations for the developmental trend were evaluated with data from subjects receiving prompts…

Students compose original stories that incorporate nonroutine problems which contribute logically to the plot of the story. Examples and suggestions from work with fifth graders and preservice elementary teachers are given. (MNS)

Seven experiments examined word triplet recall of second graders, fifth graders, and college adults. Results include findings that successful cued recall in children is more dependent than that of adults on associative constraint provided in an episode and cue, and that children make relatively better use of thematic and subordinate than of…

This lesson introduces students to the executive branch of government and its powers. The lesson was taken from "A Salute to Our Constitution and the Bill of Rights: 200 Years of American Freedom." (JDH)

Examines reading awareness and comprehension skills to discover the developmental and instructional relationships between metacognition and performance. Half of the third- and fifth-grade subjects received four months of classroom instruction on reading strategies. Results of pre- and posttests and interviews revealed that the instruction…

Describes "TechTivities," a summer program for pre-teens that was designed to offer an opportunity for children to explore subjects of special interest in a unique setting; help children acquire skills and areas of knowledge for future use; and enable a child to develop a healthy self-image through small group activities. (CT)

Describes pilot study conducted with fifth grade non-readers or poor readers which uses a child's physical activities in the outdoors to lead to, direct, and develop the printed word. Provides eight reading lesson ideas using interaction with objects in nature to create reading materials. (LFL)

Presents the results of an ethnographic study of cooperative learning experiences in one fourth- and one fifth-grade classroom. Describes the types of conflicts which arose during group work and offers four guidelines for making cooperative learning experiences more successful. (JDH)

This study compared two software programs for teaching keyboarding to students in grades four, five, and six and compared speed achievement when students were grouped by sex. One program was an educational game. The other used traditional psychological motor skill development theory as applied to typewriting instruction. Results are reported and…

A study investigated the singular and combined effectiveness of phrasing and repeated readings (practice) on the recall of idea units and narrative categories of fifth grade good and poor readers, concluding that practice rather than phrasing proved to have the most facilitating effect on poor readers' recall of idea units but not narrative…

Examined effects of beginning computer programing instruction, sex, and home computers on the attitudes of fifth-grade students (N=49). Results of this pilot study showed higher attitudes following instruction and no differences between the sexes or between those who had computers and those who did not. (JN)

Investigated whether examining materials from several perspectives had greater effect on development of projective spatial abilities than examining materials from a single perspective. Results using 105 students (56 females, 49 males) favored the former approach. Also, sex was determined to have no direct effect on development of projective…