Seventeen fourth and fifth graders with severe writing disabilities received a weekly one-hour individual tutorial which focused equally on transcription (handwriting and spelling) and composition skills. Students showed reliable improvement in composition and handwriting automaticity but not in spelling. Suggestions for teaching phonological…

In order to study the influence on memorization of external inputs as well as children's own strategies, we examined both parental discourses in terms of distancing (Sigel, 1970) and spontaneous rehearsal by children during a memory task. Our aim was to assess the influence of each factor for children between 3 and 5 years of age. In our study of…

The federal journey into public education has followed a long and winding road. Most educators know that the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is simply the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which dates all the way back to 1965. In the years since its initial passage, the ESEA road has taken a number of…

This study examined whether scripts provide a basis for the categories preschool children use to structure their semantic memories and whether the use of taxonomies to structure memory becomes more common only after children enter elementary school. Subjects were 108 children in three equal groups of 18 boys and 18 girls children each of 4-, 5-,…

In an effort to further explore the experience of understanding from the university perspective, this study examined how British students' understanding was refined and committed to memory during preparation for final examinations. After piloting an interviewing procedure, in-depth interviews were conducted with eleven students from psychology…

Intended for teachers of gifted students in grades 4-12, the curriculum uses six of Shakespeare's comedies ("The Taming of the Shrew,""The Tempest,""Twelfth Night,""The Comedy of Errors,""As You Like It," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream") as materials for nurturing intellectual and…

Intended for teachers and parents, this book focuses on demolishing widely held myths about poor spellers and about the process of spelling. "Dear Professor Henderson" (chapter 1) is a dedication to a favorite college professor who remonstrated with the author about his "lazy" spelling. "Kneeling on Rice" (chapter 2)…

This report addresses the relationship between education and creativity in Japan, with a focus on four issues. First, the definition and measurement of creativity is discussed. Approaches to the measurement of creativity are presented and criticized, and different meanings of creativity (i.e., originality, deviation from the group,…

To examine the role of phonetic code in memory, a study investigated the use of phonetic recoding strategies in fifth and sixth graders identified as good and poor readers. Subjects--120 students with IQ scores in the average range--were divided evenly between both grades. Thirty subjects from each grade who scored above the 50th percentile on the…

This study focused on adult age differences in the organizational processes of memory as measured by performance (number of words recalled) and subject imposed organization (SO) of information. Thirty males in each of three age groups (16-19, 30-39, 45-54) underwent 16 inspection trials and 16 recall trails on an experimental list of 22 unrelated…

Some generalizations about teaching are seen as false including: the silent student is an uninvolved learner; grades are a necessary evil; discussion is preferable to lecture; teachers are fellow-learners with their students; students need to acquire, not memorize information; and instruction must be geared to student backgrounds and aspirations.…

Discusses the teaching of electron configurations and various systems used to help students write them correctly. Presents an approach to this type of instruction which uses diagrams and mnemonic devices. Examples of exercises which encourage the use of this method are provided. (TW)

Defines "skill-to-meaning" instruction. Describes research designed to determine the effectiveness of skill-to-meaning mathematics instruction for educable mentally handicapped children. Discusses educational implications of the study results and notes the benefits of meaning for handicapped children. (SB)

High school students studied a passage to achieve prememorized goals in three experiments. Inspection times and eye movements were recorded in goal-relevant and nonrelevant text neighborhoods. Goal-relevant sentences resulted in twice as many fixations. Qualitative differences were observed in style of subjects' responses to task demands.…

Argues that effective citizenship requires geographic place knowledge. Recommends that primary students develop place vocabulary through memorization and map activities. Analyzes three social studies (grades 1-4) textbooks for attention to place vocabulary. Finds that none offers a systematic approach to place vocabulary acquisition. Introduces…