The physical education department of the Pennsylvania Advancement School of Philadelphia has established a reading and communication skill project that uses the appeal of sports to help students improve their basic skills. (Author)

A lesson, "Harriet Tubman: A Most Successful Conductor," illustrates how to employ a basal reader in social studies instruction in the elementary grades. This approach offers students a relevant curriculum, greater opportunities for concept development, practice in skills areas, and activities that offer greater opportunity to master…

Comments on the preceding article by Bogdan, and discusses how to help college students in qualitative methods courses to develop analytic and synthetic skills in the presentation and formulation of research problems. (GC)

Reports research into the design and application of physical and mental practice strategies for the development of laboratory psychomotor skills of freshman chemistry students (N=360). Design of instruction materials used (focusing skills using balance, pipet, and buret and skills in quantitative volumetric analysis), evaluation of strategies, and…

Questions whether children are being taught the knowledge and skills they will need to function effectively in the emerging information society and argues that, rather than feeling threatened by computers, teachers should regard them as tools to use to do an even better job in the classroom. (MBR)

Effective decision-making depends upon true communication among decision-makers. Futurists should develop fundamental thinking skills such as the ability to formulate good questions, consider alternative points of view, and set short- and long-range goals. By example and through education, the "tools of futuristics" can be employed usefully in…

Compared parents from families (N=103) with retarded children who began a training program in behavior management. Based on posttraining assessment, low proficient parents were designated as lower socioeconomic status with less experience. A prediction based on six-month follow-up indicated low follow-through families had achieved less…

Studied the effectiveness of programed instruction and large group instruction in teaching empathy to lay people (N=55). Results support the contention that empathy can be developed through programed tapes either alone or in large group programs. Modeling and practice are key factors in successful training. (Author/JAC)

Activities of the Pre-Medical Enrichment Program, sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) are designed to increase the number of minority and low-income students who are unable to successfully compete for admission to medical school as well as successfully complete a medical degree. (NQA)

Researchers from the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois assert that inadequate reading textbooks and the failure to teach reading comprehension in the primary grades contribute to reading comprehension problems in the upper grades. Shortcomings of textbooks are specified and methods for teaching reading comprehension are…