A study with 503 applicants to the University of Helsinki (Finland) medical school compared the predictive validity of multiple-choice science tests and a "learning-from-text" test (LFT) designed to measure deep-level text processing. Results indicated the LFT was the best predictor of student academic progress in basic science courses.…

Constructivism refers to a collection of educational practices that are student-focused, meaning-based, process-oriented, interactive, and responsive to student personal interests and needs. In contrast, instructionism refers to a collection of educational practices that are teacher-focused, skill-based, product-oriented, non-interactive, and…

Despite a body of evidence that curriculum-based measurement of reading (R-CBM) is a valid measure of general reading achievement, some school-based professionals remain unconvinced. At the core of their argument is their experience with word callers, students who purportedly can read fluently, but do not understand what they read. No studies have…

Efforts to improve the educational achievement of children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are at the heart of current government policies in the United Kingdom. The Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP) is an intervention that, since 1995, has worked directly with parents and caregivers of children from infancy to 5 years of…

This What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) topic report addresses reading interventions for students in grades K-3, including core reading curricula, programs, or products to be used as supplements to other reading instruction, programs that focus on staff development, and literacy software. The WWC review on beginning reading focuses on programs…

Developed by the ABCs of Construction National Workplace Literacy Project, these curriculum materials for the occupational area of millwright contain three lessons that deal with getting meaning from context. Each lesson consists of an objective, instruction, and exercises. Lesson 1 contains seven exercises, Lesson 2 has four, and Lesson 3 has…

Developed by the ABCs of Construction National Workplace Literacy Project, these curriculum materials for the occupational area of pipefitter contain two lessons that deal with getting meaning from context. Each lesson consists of an objective, instruction, and exercises. Lesson 1 contains 11 exercises, and lesson 2 has 12. The objective of lesson…

Cost-effective classroom teaching strategies are provided for teachers working with students with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders in inclusive settings from late elementary through early high school levels. Section 1 discusses the importance of learning strategies and includes an overview of strategic learning in the…

A study investigated how students of English as a second language (ESL) improved their use of learning strategies through awareness-raising in group interviews and informal training. Subjects were 68 Taiwanese university students in two freshman English classes. Subjects responded to an English learning strategy questionnaire in the beginning and…

Papers from the symposium on applied linguistics include: "Roles in the Foreign Language Classroom" (Robert J. DiPietro); "The Importance of Native Language in Light of Second-Language Studies" (Alexander Z. Guiora); "A Model of L2 Text Reconstruction: The Recall of Literary Text by Learners of German" (Elizabeth B.…

This learning module was developed during a project to deliver workplace literacy instruction to individuals employed in the more than 50 businesses related to the activities of the Port of Baltimore. It contains a sample of individual lessons that the project instructors used in individualized tutorial sessions with students working on reading,…

In order to study for citizenship tests, amnesty students need to be able to read U.S. history material, although they usually have no background knowledge for it. According to schema theory, background knowledge is important for reading comprehension. Research has shown significant improvement in the reading comprehension of intermediate level…

This document contains a competency-based workplace literacy curriculum that is intended to develop workers' reading comprehension skills by building on their prior knowledge and integrating job-related reading materials actually used by workers on the job with other academic reading materials and textbooks. Designed to be used in conjunction with…

This paper provides a brief description of the development of the Diagnostic Assessments of Reading with Trial Teaching Strategies (DARTTS) program by F. G. Roswell and J. S. Chall. It also describes the editorial and statistical procedures that were used to validate the program for determining students' strengths and weaknesses in important areas…

The 1993 Illinois Goal Assessment Program (IGAP) Reading Tests measured reading comprehension using both narrative and expository reading passages. Noticeable differences in mean scaled scores occurred depending on whether the 1993 results were equated back to the 1992 narrative test or the 1993 expository test (Hsu and Ackerman, 1994). In an…