Compared 12 right-handed adolescent females with a history of idiopathic precocious puberty to 12 closely pair-matched normal controls of similar maturational status to test the association of physical maturation with cognitive abilities and the mediation of this association by hemispheric specialization. (HOD)

Reports three experiments which examined preschool, first-grade, and third-grade children's understanding of metaphorical language. Subjects acted out short stories which ended in metaphorical sentences by using toys. Predictability of the story endings and the complexity of the metaphorical sentences are found to affect metaphor comprehension.…

Two groups of children (ages 10 and 14) were compared on silent reading and listening comprehension of nouns, verbs, and concepts within and across sentences under conditions of suppressed and nonsuppressed phonological recoding to investigate the role of phonological recoding for the students' comprehension of the passage. (HOD)

Discusses issues raised during the course of a research project conducted to determine the place of comprehension activities in the teaching of English, including the question of whether the development of comprehension activities has any place in the teaching of English at the 12-grade level. (DF)

Reports the results of an experiment which tested the ability of native English-speaking students of Spanish and native Spanish speakers to comprehend an oral passage, in Spanish, and remember the word order of certain sentences. The findings indicate that word order significantly affected the degree of the English speakers' comprehension.…

This study reports the preliminary results of the development and validation of a test designed to measure listening comprehension as a predictor of reading comprehension, the Simon-Dole Listening Comprehension Test (SDLCT). (Author/LMO)

Purposes of the study were to determine whether training children to compare different parts of text improves detection of text errors and whether self-controlled training of comparison produces more durable use of the strategy. Children offered a self-instructional routine monitored comprehension better than did subjects given minimal training.…

Describes Purdue University's two oral proficiency interviews that are a prerequisite to student teaching in a foreign language. Focuses on the procedures and content of the interviews for students of German. A three-member committee has the student read one page of materials and then asks the student questions. (SED)

A study of 11-year-old children concluded that the detection of changes in prose material is related to an individual's sex and level of extraversion. (Author/IS)

This article criticizes the systematic use of audio-visual methods in second language teaching because of the imprecise semantic impression they may leave on the student. The use of translation exercises is proposed as an alternative. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/CLK)

Wherever aural comprehension is prized, together with literacy and ability to read the foreign language, dictation may be found to be both profitable for teaching and valid for testing. It must not be presented as a series of spelling traps but as a realistic language activity. (Author/CFM)

"Arthur," a book-based educational television program designed for children ages 4-8, is popular among preschool and kindergarten students. The program is based on the storybooks, by Marc Brown, about Arthur, an 8-year-old aardvark. Each show is 30 minutes in length and includes two stories involving characters dealing with moral issues.…

Most students prefer visual input--through normal development or instructional reinforcement--yet, most teachers provide information to be taken in by listening. This mismatch can confound the learning process. To determine how well teachers listen and what their preferences might be, more than 300 Arkansas educators (predominantly female public…

Suggesting that the continuing rise in illiteracy is due to the decrease of simple forms of communication including conversation, stories, songs, and rhymes, this study investigated the possibility of reestablishing the connection between literacy and orality through education, especially with English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students and with…

This study investigated the effect of active participation in a story reading on children's understanding of false belief. Children, ages 38-63 months, were assigned to a participation or non-participation group. Participating children engaged in a book-reading process using puppets to respond to the story. Non-participating children were read the…