Describes the third in a series of studies investigating effects of psychological variable of encoding specificity on cognitive learning, test design, and visualization during instruction and testing. Encoding specificity, its application to classroom learning and testing, and its significance to educational technology are explained. The first two…

This study compared the instructional effectiveness of both cued and noncued pictures and cued and noncued text; investigated whether a combination of pictorial and textual cues is the most effective strategy for low and average reading ability students; and compared average and low reading subjects using noncueing and cueing methods. (MBR)

Task performance of 35 first graders was analyzed in relation to their third-grade reading and arithmetic test scores. The visual-auditory task, requiring the child to select the correct auditory representation of a visually presented consonant-vowel-consonant, accounted for 48 percent of the variance in third-grade reading scores. (Author/PN)

Explores direct techniques, such as semantic mapping and formal word analysis, as ways of supplementing the incidental learning of French vocabulary through reading by high school students in immersion and extended French classes. Findings indicate that these techniques can play a positive role in the second language classroom. (38 references)…

Investigates the color term knowledge of two-year olds and the influence of schooling on their color term acquisition. Findings reveal considerable knowledge in these children. Conclusions are that contemporary children's early and frequent experience with color terms may account for this cohort's improved performance over previous generations of…

Examines a task that can be applied in a uniform fashion across different languages to compare levels of vocabulary development in foreign-language learning. Results indicate that the lexical decision task can be a useful tool for the assessment and cross-linguistic comparison of lexical development in foreign-language learning. (37 references)…

Discusses changes occurring in two-, four-, and six-month-old infants' visual attention span, through a series of experiments examining their ability to orient to peripheral visual stimuli. The results obtained were consistent with the hypothesis that infants get faster with age in shifting attention to a spatial location. (AA)

Reports on the effects of meaning negotiation on young children's acquisition of English-as-a-Second-Language word meanings while they listened individually and in small groups to directions containing words unknown to them and to encouragement to negotiate their understanding of the directions. Results show that the children varied in their…

Reports on an experiment where 64 elementary school students participated in reading, clapping, and vocalizing rhythms notated in color. Results after a 23-week treatment period revealed that the experimental group scored slightly higher reading both colored and uncolored notation than a control group. (MJP)

A study involving 17 Belgian children with hearing impairments and 33 parents, 10 with deafness, found that parents with deafness differed significantly from hearing parents in the use of a visual communication style adapted to the developmental communication needs and abilities related to the 18- to 24-month age period. (Contains references.)…

Describes the development of a 3-D virtual environment for secondary school and college physics and chemistry. Discusses individual learning styles; the effectiveness of visual stimuli in science education; implications of visual learning in designing instruction for differences in learning styles; and conceptual understanding. (LRW)

Describes study that was designed to examine the impact of action and sound on preschool children's preferential selection and recall of verbal content presented in a computer microworld. Visual superiority and auditory superiority hypotheses are discussed, sex differences are examined, and results indicate the importance of including action. (29…

Two visually impaired children, aged 8 and 10, appeared to have severe difficulty in recognizing faces. After assessment, it became apparent that only one had unusually poor facial recognition skills. After training, which included matching face photographs, schematic faces, and digitized faces, there was no evidence of any improvement.…

This paper reviews graphophonic factors underlying the development of reading competence and their relationship to functional aspects of reading. The paper suggests that attention be paid to aspects of visual form, such as the use of typographic and linguistic cues, to improve the operational effectiveness and motivational appeal of materials for…

Recent research indicates that Americans are reading less than they have in the past, as black-and-white text competes with more visually exciting media, such as the Internet, movies, and television. As a solution to this problem, the author proposes that books and instructional materials engage readers visually through the use of color and…