Presents an analysis of the effects of different styles of teacher talk on the degrees of initiative and talkativeness shown by preschool children involved in conversation with teachers. Investigates the relationships between changes in teaching style and the level of cognitive sophistication shown by children in dialog. (Author)

Young children found it difficult to verify negative statements, but found affirmative statements, affirmative questions, and negative questions equally easy to deal with. It is proposed that children acquire the answering system earlier than the verification system, and use answering to verify statements before acquiring the verification system.…

A solution is proposed to the traditional, unexplained use of optional backshifting in teaching past tenses of English verbs. The solution is based on correct and explicit formulation of the past tense examples used, so that optional backshifting would be unnecessary and inappropriate. (MSE)

Recent applications and extensions of the research technique of interviewing in teaching experiments are discussed. An experiment to reveal the constructive mechanisms used by children in learning numeration, addition, and subtraction is reported. (MSE)

As a group, mothers used nearly twice as many facilitating as fragmenting strategies. Data suggested as mothers' rates of facilitative interrogatives increase, the conversation remains on the topic longer with more child utterances and responses. (CL)

A study of how variables such as motivation, constraint, difficulty, and function in questioning may affect the child's responsiveness to mother questions suggests that functionally defined question types are differentiable by both their relative power to elicit a child response and the manner in which they are presented. (MSE)

Argues that reading teachers need to be aware of the art of hypothesizing ("guessing") and foster its development in their students. Offers guidelines to facilitate guessing. (FL)

Explains how teachers can make children's encounters with art more exciting and memorable. (FL)

Argues that the standards for formulating comprehension questions do not take into account the differences between written and spoken language. Introduces mutuality-enhancing devices as a way to improve oral comprehension questioning. (FL)

Although questioning is of interest to many fields, multidisciplinary approaches are rare. To reveal interrelationships between various literatures, a framework is formulated. The literatures on questioning in different fields are surveyed and compared. (Author/GK)

Examined the discriminant validity, criterion-related validity, and between-spouse agreement for a marital intake interview as a function of interview method and valence of interview items. Results suggested a high degree of discriminant validity, higher interspouse correlations during joint interviews, and higher indices of criterion related…

Uses the questioning techniques of the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity and the Guide-O-Rama to enhance social studies students' reading comprehension. (AEA)

Questioning techniques are used in the classroom to initiate discussion and to exert teacher control over the class. However, question-answer relationships appear to foster respondent dependency and passivity. It is recommended that the teacher question only when he or she is perplexed and in need of information. (JN)

Determines if instruction in the Socratic method would increase higher level questioning during peer teaching experiences in teacher education programs. Raters, using the higher order questioning strategy, evaluated 14 students. A significant increase in higher level questions being asked suggests the Socratic Method may be useful. (Author)

Provides lists of questions, one for fiction and one for nonfiction, that teachers can ask students during reading conferences in order to reinforce student interest and enthusiasm for further reading. (FL)