Energy plays a central role in our society, so it is essential that all citizens understand what energy is and how it moves and changes form. However, research has shown that students of all ages have difficulty understanding these abstract concepts. This paper presents a summary of elementary, middle, and high school students' understanding of…

The results of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey paint a troubling portrait of the literacy skills of adults in the United States. The survey included a direct assessment of skills and was conducted in 23 countries with nationally representative samples of adults ages 16 through 65. Assessed were…

Purpose: The goal of the current research study was to advance our knowledge of cognitive-communicative disorders following traumatic brain injury (TBI) by identifying the cognitive and communicative processes underlying narrative discourse ability. The study (1) examined the role of working memory (WM) and inferencing in narrative discourse, (2)…

This paper assesses the efficiency of the "Language Immersion e-Course" developed at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Language Centre. The new self-study revision e-course, promoting students' proficiency in spoken and aural Russian through autonomous learning, is based on the Michel Thomas method, and is…

Narrative skill in kindergarteners has been shown to be a reliable predictor of later reading comprehension and school achievement. However, we know little about how to scaffold children's narrative skill. Here we examine whether the quality of kindergarten children's narrative retellings depends on the kind of narrative elicitation they are…

Purpose: Speech acoustic characteristics of children with cerebral palsy (CP) were examined with a multiple speech subsystems approach; speech intelligibility was evaluated using a prediction model in which acoustic measures were selected to represent three speech subsystems. Method: Nine acoustic variables reflecting different subsystems, and…

Recent literature reviews have highlighted the need to better understand the relation between speaker and listener behavior when teaching learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current paper outlines the practical implications of evaluating the emergence of tact and listener behavior during instruction for the opposite relation, as…

During the first years of language development, toddlers coordinate multiple cues in order to acquire the plural form. The aim of this study was to manipulate object similarity as well as set size in order to determine whether these variables impact children's comprehension of plurality. One-hundred-and-fifty children ranging in age from 22 to 36…

This commentary addresses the complexities of reading comprehension with an explicit focus on reading in the disciplines. The author proposes reading as entailing multi-dimensional demands of the reader and posing complex challenges for teachers. These challenges are intensified by restrictive conceptions of relevant prior knowledge and experience…

This article is the second in a series that examines the intelligibility of a person with congenital aglossia (PWCA). Specific factors examined in this study included (a) intelligibility for meaningful words versus nonsense words, (b) intelligibility for consonant-vowel-consonant words (CVCs) as a function of phonemic segment types, and (c)…

This study examines how focusing on the notion of "poeticality" (poetical forms) can provide functional insights with respect to the narrativeness of physics teaching. From this perspective, through both a meaning-making and aesthetic approach, this article explores how vehicles such as verse and rhetorical figures--metaphor, irony,…

Decades of reading research have improved our understanding of the ways that young children learn how to read and of the component skills that support the ongoing development of reading and reading comprehension. However, while these investments have transformed reading instruction and reading outcomes for many learners, too many children are not…

Decades of reading research have improved our understanding of the ways that young children learn how to read and of the component skills that support the ongoing development of reading and reading comprehension. But while these investments have transformed reading instruction and reading outcomes for many learners, too many children are not…

In response to an open-ended assessment task, 282 children of 6 to 8 years of age revealed their understandings of mass measurement. Each of the Year 1 and 2 children in 13 classes from 3 schools represented their knowledge of mass measurement in drawing and / or writing. Responses ranged from portrayals of activities they had undertaken or…

Three research-based and time honored strategies--Question Answer Relationships (QAR), Question the Author (QtA), and Reciprocal Teaching (RT)--were matched to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) to determine if the use of those instructional routines would address the new, more rigorous standards. Specifically, Grade 4 TEKS for…