Describes the uses of multimedia and scaffolding to support 10- and 11-year-old students' experiences with expository text. Explains that multimedia offers teachers and teacher educators the means to improve student achievement in both authentic literacy skills and social studies topics. Concludes that by designing instructional environments that…

Discusses how reading comprehension can be improved through research-validated instruction. Outlines emerging issues of comprehension instruction, such as the limits of word-recognition instruction, cognitive capacity constraints, and diverse text tasks. Contends that there needs to be experimental validation of comprehensive comprehension…

Shares several middle level teachers' best ideas for teaching vocabulary. Describes using word lines with English as a second language students. Shares a vocabulary activity that could be used across content areas. Describes how to use the current words on a word wall to make a transition into a new unit and the beginning of new word lists. (SG)

Describes a Middlebury College second language vocabulary learning database that goes well beyond flashcards, because it keeps track of what students learn. Discusses further expansion of the system through collaborative filtering software to establish learner profiles. A learner profile could then be used to create instructional materials just…

Examines whether aspects of phonological awareness critically depend on literacy exposure among 4-6-year-olds. Parental responses to a questionnaire about home literacy environment are compared to children's awareness of rhyme and phonemes, their vocabulary, letter knowledge, and performance on measures of phonological strength. Results showed…

This article addresses the educational needs of fourth-graders who are having reading difficulties, first by briefly discussing the five research-based components of early reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension), and then by recasting these components in terms of instruction of older, struggling students.…

Examines the debate over the text or media that best enable second-year learners of German to increase their active vocabulary. Suggests the novel "Der Richter und sein Henker" can be enriched by the film adaptation. Classroom tested activities incorporate care fully-sequenced visuals and culminate in analysis of both the book and the film. Sample…

Investigated the relationships of expressive vocabulary size with frequency of being read to and frequency of watching television among 64 bilingual 21- 27-month-old children from homes in which Spanish and English were spoken. Frequency of being read to in each language was positively correlated with expressive vocabulary size. Frequency of…

Examines form-similar nouns in early lexical development of a bilingual German/English child, as well as effects of form similarity in picture naming and translation in two groups of German/English children. Results show an effect of form similarity in early lexical development; form similar words occurred frequently in the beginning of the…

Five elementary level language classroom games for teaching vocabulary, question-asking, and facts about Canada are described. They include 2 games of concentration, a game of discovery, a review of facts about Canada, and a game of 20 questions. Most are specifically designed for French language usage. (MSE)

Four ideas for French language classroom activities include creation of a parody horoscope, reenactment of household scenes from a comic strip, an exercise in memorizing grammatical rules through children's chants, and analysis of a videotape's content, aural, and visual components. (MSE)

Investigates the effectiveness of technical vocabulary instruction before, during, and after reading content area materials in biology, government, and economics. Finds no significant differences attributable to the time of instruction. Finds a strong teacher effect. Concludes that the manner in which vocabulary is taught is more important than…

Adolescents (n=25) with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to either mnemonic conditions or experimenter-directed rehearsal conditions and individually taught difficult vocabulary words, half abstract and half concrete. Results included higher scores on both recall and comprehension tests by mnemonically trained students for both…

Discusses how English teachers can work with other departments to promote interdisciplinary approaches to teaching. Describes sharing writing labs; producing television news reports; engaging in a school-wide theme week; an "academic" Olympic Games; vocabulary exercises in the social studies classes; mock trials; and a team-taught social…

Similarity neighborhoods for words in young children's lexicons were investigated using three computerized databases. Results revealed that words in five- and seven-year-olds' lexicons have many fewer similar neighbors. (Author/CB)