Examines students' motivations for participating in literacy tasks. Finds that grade five students responded positively when the context was perceived as autonomy supportive, and grade three students reported more intrinsic motivations when they perceived the context to be socially supportive than nonsocial contexts. (CR)

Highlights an activity that focuses on learning the geometric concepts needed for students to design blueprints for a city park by mastering fifth-grade geometry concepts and applying their knowledge in a real-world context. (ASK)

Uses an achievement-goal framework to examine changes in students' motivation for reading and writing (a longitudinal study involving 431 students in grades 3 through 5) and to evaluate a classroom-intervention project. Finds that, as teachers provided more opportunities for students to complete challenging, collaborative, and multiday…

Multimethod approach, consisting of teacher ratings, self-ratings, sociometric ratings, direct observations and semistructured interview, were used to assess social skills of fifth-grade students. European and Asian-American students differed significantly on sociometric ratings. Asian Americans enjoyed more outergroup social communications.…

Tested third-, fifth-grade, and college students for ability to apprehend moral messages in selected stories from "Book of Virtues." Asked participants to generate the message, select the message from a list, and select a vignette with the same message from three possibilities. Results Indicate a developmental difference in moral-theme…

Among 56 Mexican American fifth-graders participating in two-way bilingual education for 3 years or more, standardized test scores of both English-dominant and Spanish-dominant participants equalled or surpassed those of nonparticipant peers. Participants developed high levels of English literacy skills, but Spanish literacy was not as well…

Presents data on personal, family, peer, and school factors associated with preadolescent students manifesting anger-related problems at school. Results indicate that cumulative positive and negative experiences at home, in school, and with peers have a major impact on the frequency and intensity of anger experienced at school. Urges school…

Students in a self-contained gifted and talented fifth grade evaluated three major learning activities of the Full Option Science System (FOSS). Students rated the activities very positively and felt the activities had given them greater confidence to work in groups, to be creative, and to strive to accomplish hard tasks as well as developing…

Examined the mechanisms of peer influences on fifth-grade children's drawings. Observed the socio-collaborative processes by which children influence each other's artistic styles; found gender differences in content, technical quality, and meaning. (JPB)

Describes an interdisciplinary project incorporating both geography and mathematics for fourth and fifth grade students. Focuses on reading a map with lines of latitude and longitude, learning about climatic regions, and using statistical measures to analyze data. Suggests additional activities to accompany the project. (CMK)

Examines the effects of text practice and prosodic modeling on the reading rate, accuracy, expressiveness, and comprehension of disabled readers. Each subject read the first half of a set of stories three times under one of four experimental conditions. While reading performance improved across all conditions, substantial additional gains were…

Examined the efficacy of an automated reinforcement device, the Attention Training System (ATS), in decreasing off-task behavior in an 11-year-old, fifth-grade student who had been diagnosed as being affected with ADHD and had been placed in Special Education Resources Room programming. Results indicated success in three subject areas. (JBJ)

Tests the effectiveness of CONTACT-2, a revision of CONTACT strategy, which uses continuous, computer-assisted activation of learner conceptions in text processing. CONTACT-2 was found to be more effective as a process-oriented instructional strategy. Student subjects in grades five and six with the CONTACT-2 condition constructed better…

Mountain School, run by North Cascades Institute, is a camp in North Cascades National Park, Washington, where elementary school students spend 48 hours living and learning about science and the environment. In addition to science and nature, responsibility and teamwork are taught. Describes innovative instructional methods used, such as…

Describes how to incorporate a game into teaching the Dewey decimal system to elementary students in grades three, four, and five. Provides ideas for a nine-week session that includes five weeks of instruction on the Dewey decimal system, card catalog, and Boolean searching; and four weeks of competition. (LRW)