This instructional bulletin, second in a series of three publications designed to provide a sequential development of communication skills for educable mentally retarded pupils in elementary school, contains suggested learning objective and activities for implementation in language arts courses. Contents include: "Developing Fundamental Skills in…

A monthly exchange of tips, projects, ideas, and resources, which are all activity oriented and can add interest to the elementary classroom. (Editor)

Examines the relationship between writer and audience as perceived by teacher and student in the learning process and the testing of learning. Reviews some features which influence and distort the teacher's perceptions of written work. Suggests that the use of student attitudes about writing can increase the reliability and validity of…

Available from: Sage Publications, Inc., 275 South Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90212. Evaluated was the use of positive reinforcement in the remediation of severe perceptual motor disorders in the handwriting of four learning disabled boys (7 to 10 years old). (IM)

Discovering the truth of personal experience inside a poem engenders a bond of community. This collection of poems was written to honor literacy educators for all they do. The book presents poems about literacy teaching and learning in a collection of honesty and wit that aims to touch and inspire educators at all grade levels. For those in higher…

Ideas for incorporating five essential writing skills, identified by the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills, into elementary social studies courses are presented. These include spelling, organizing ideas in writing, a knowledge of standard punctuation and capitalization, ability to control sentence structure, and use of legible handwriting for…

Describes a language program for first-grade students incorporating the following strands: writing, poetry, reading, group cloze activities, the Scott Foresman Reading Scheme, recreational reading, handwriting, phonics, and language games. (MM)

Left-handers with an inverted handwriting posture were compared with other left-handers and with right-handers on a spatial reasoning test. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that left-inverted subjects had relatively bilateral representation of verbal and spatial functions. Bilateral representation is assumed to be inefficient.…

Artificially induced expectancy of essay quality and handwriting quality of essays were shown to affect reader ratings of essay tests. There was a significant effect for expectancy, none for handwriting, and an interesting but non-significant interaction effect. (JKS)

The performance of 76 students (ages 10 to 15) with learning disabilities on four tasks of arithmetic computation within each of the four basic operations was examined. Tasks varied in difficulty level and number of strokes needed to complete all items. Intercorrelations between task sets and operations were examined as was the use of…

Compared 28- to 53-month-olds' writing and drawing. Scores on a writing scale composed of graphic, "writing-like," and symbolic schemes improved with age. Recognition of drawings as drawings preceded recognition of writings as writings. Writing and drawing scores were substantially correlated, even with age partialed out, suggesting that…

Discusses whether the mathematics achievement of at-risk fifth-grade students using computer-assisted instruction (CAI) differs from that of at-risk students using other methods of instruction. Found that boys using CAI made greater gains than boys using paper and pencil activities, and that at-risk girls made gains in math skills regardless of…

A case study of an eight-year-old boy with learning disabilities illustrates a cognitive approach to assessing and remedying numeral-writing difficulties. Discussed are the sources of writing difficulty, assessing and fostering an accurate mental image, and constructing an accurate motor plan. Successful remediation resulted from nine five-minute…