Reports on a study of the relationship of both phonemic and musical sound discrimination to reading ability among 18 British first graders. Finds that discrimination of musical sounds is related to music performance but that the influential factor is a specific awareness of pitch changes. (CFR)

This paper argues that using intelligence as an aptitude benchmark in defining reading disability conceals unsupported assumptions about educational potential and makes it difficult to differentiate the cognitive characteristics of dyslexic children from those of other poor readers. The use of a more educationally relevant aptitude measure such as…

Suggests teaching listening skills at the beginning of the school year to enhance the high school classroom learning environment. Outlines a five-step lesson plan for teaching listening skills. Notes that students can use this plan on their own. Reports a renewed interest in social studies and better performance on tests. (NL)

This study examined the interaction of acoustic-phonetic information with higher-level linguistic contextual information during the real-time speech perception process in child, young adult, and older adult listeners. Findings indicated that target word predictability influenced the timing and nature of the real-time recognition process, including…

Using 38 beginning-level university students of French, this study confirmed that student listening comprehension of a foreign language video would be facilitated by the use of an advance organizer consisting of several short sentences, written in French, that summarized chronologically the events in the video. Sample test items and answers are…

Fifteen caregivers each glossed a simultaneously videotaped and audiotaped sample of their child with speech delay in conversation with a clinician. Comparison with a reference gloss developed for each sample indicated that caregivers accurately understood an average of 58% of the utterances and 73% of the words. (Author/DB)

Describes study of undergraduates that measured the effect of audiovisual channel correspondence during television news programs on attention and memory. Learning variables in multimedia presentations are discussed, reaction time with visual and auditory probes is examined, factual memory and visual memory tests are described, and implications for…

Discusses what five teachers learned when they engaged in a literature discussion group to discuss children's books to develop themselves as writing teachers. Highlights the three layers of talk (emotional responses, exploring the meaning of the book, and exploring the writer's craft) and the role these play in the learning process. (SR)

Presents the sources and solutions of listening-comprehension anxiety as reported by foreign-language students and discusses the pedagogical implications that relate to the results. (Author/VWL)

Describes the establishment of a course for long-distance learners in Korea. Students studying English conversation who left school to work in other cities finished their course via telephone. (Author/VWL)

Eighty children, ages 3 to 17, with autism or Asperger's syndrome and mild to severe distress in the presence of some sounds received either auditory training or a control condition of listening to the same music. Significant improvements in behavior, severity of autism, and IQ were achieved and maintained for 12 months by both groups. (Author/DB)

This article suggests that students with emotional/behavioral disorders may use disruptive behaviors to escape and avoid teacher instructional language for which they do not have comprehension skills and thus find aversive. Teacher instructional language thus maintains aberrant behavior through a negative reinforcement paradigm. Recommendations…

Examines the effects of text practice and prosodic modeling on the reading rate, accuracy, expressiveness, and comprehension of disabled readers. Each subject read the first half of a set of stories three times under one of four experimental conditions. While reading performance improved across all conditions, substantial additional gains were…

The benefits of pre-first programs and grade retentions are not consistently supported in the research literature. Study investigates the short- and long-term effects of pre-first programs on students' (n=66) academic achievement in reading and mathematics. No significant differences were found in six of the eight analyses conducted, indicating…

The requirements for English language skills at the British Key Stage 2 curriculum level rise so steeply that it seems possible that many African Caribbean students may not be able to demonstrate their true competence. A rigid move toward standard English can be detrimental to minority group students. (SLD)