Discusses ways to achieve peak performance in academic libraries by emphasizing staff development. Highlights include self-assessment; conflict of commitment; self-absorption; institutional loyalty; focusing on the future; and understanding the library's strategic plan, mission statement, and policies. (AEF)

Notes that a clearly defined purpose with identification of performance goals is crucial to the success of middle school teacher teams. Provides several practical ways for teacher teams to discover or define their purpose, including naming the team and identifying desirable qualities for team members. (HTH)

Fifty-three children (ages 9-13) with dyslexia completed a summer tutoring program that emphasized word-building skills. Children who received piracetam (a purportedly memory-enhancing drug) did not improve more than nonmedicated children in any aspect of reading. Children subtyped as "phonetic" improved significantly more in…

Describes a study that investigated the effects of flowcharts utilizing maplike symbols on performer efficiency in completing a complex procedural task. The effectiveness of instructional flowcharts is discussed; map learning is examined; and data on response times for three presentation formats (i.e., map, flowchart, and list) and four levels of…

Reviews reasons for the Association for Childhood Education International's opposition to standardized testing of children in the early grades. Discusses two alternative approaches: nonstructured assessments and structured assessments. Considers parents' and teachers' roles in these forms of assessments, and the teacher training that is needed.…

Forty children were divided into four groups and administered the Tower of Hanoi puzzle using static and dynamic approaches. The benefits of age and ability were indicated by significant improvement from the general failure of the four- to five-year olds to the success of the majority of the high ability seven- to eight-year olds. (Author/JDD)

Forty-two inner city intermediate-grade learning-disabled students wrote fables when provided with the following stimuli: story starter, story ending with story content, and story ending with rhetorical purpose. The story ending groups did more story development planning than the story starter group, but composition quality was not significantly…

Twenty-nine deaf students (ages three to five) were observed during outdoor free play. Children with higher language ability were more likely than other children to play with two other partners at once, interact with teachers, use language, prefer playing with children of similar language ability, and receive language from partners. (Author/PB)

Grade 6-7 learning-disabled students (n=21) and nonlearning-disabled students (n=13) completed the Test of Written Language story subtest, a book report assignment, and an interview concerning reported strategy use. Higher reported strategy use failed to correlate significantly with the quality of the final written products for either group.…

Fifteen students read expository texts and filled in deleted words and phrases. The five deaf high school youths reported using similar strategies as hearing elementary school youths and hearing reading-disabled high school youths, but deaf readers more often relied on rereading and background knowledge, whereas hearing readers more often used…

Examination of 23 4-year-old children classified otitis media negative or positive during their first year of life indicated that otitis positive children required a more advantageous signal-to-competition ratio for sentence intelligibility, compared to otitis-negative peers. No intergroup differences were found in receptive or expressive language…

This study explored the influences of social, psychological, and cultural determinants of underachievement as perceived by 148 intermediate grade African-American students in gifted, above average, or average academic programs. Psychological factors played the greatest role in underachievement or poor achievement motivation. Underachievement…

Junior high learning-disabled students (n=29) were taught U.S. states and capitals. Students scored higher on items taught mnemonically than on items taught traditionally, whether students were required to provide forward or backward information. Significant correlations were found between performance and reported mnemonic strategy usage.…

Investigates hypothesis that topic familiarity and assessed difficulty of a text correlate positively with performance on reading comprehension tests. A study of 177 advanced students of English for Specific Purposes indicates that students' subjective evaluation of the relative difficulty of a reading text is not always a reliable index of their…

Sixty-five persons with visual impairments were videotaped as they located and learned the arrangement of five objects in a novel space. Analysis of videotapes and verbal self-reports of the 15 best performing participants revealed that they implemented systematic perimeter and/or gridline patterns, utilized their canes efficiently, and…