Studies in Soviet learning theory are reviewed to provide information to educators as they work with didacticians and methodologists to improve the public education system along lines specified by the 25th Party Congress. (DB)

Four experiments investigated memory scanning rates of skilled and less skilled readers. In three experiments, reaction times of skilled readers were faster than those of less skilled readers with reading time partialled out (aloud and silent reading). Differences were not significant when the scan component in answering was minimized. (Author/RD)

Classroom teachers should work at altering classroom activity so that it is process-centered, so that it piques the curiosity of the students, and demands both left and right brain involvement. Literature can be used as well as any other art form in stimulating this kind of learning process. (Author/EB)

Differing world views and cultural expectations affect how teachers and students relate to one another. (Author)

In terms of group averages, growth in achievement by an experimental class was 8.56 (856 percent) greater than the growth generated by the control group in a teaching strategy experiment conducted at San Jose State University. Details of the ORPA (Organization, Research, Presentation, Accountability) Teaching Strategy versus the…

College students either read or listened to tape-recorded stories, and immediately wrote a 60- to 80-word summary. A comparison of the readers' and the listeners' summaries revealed only minor differences; listeners included slightly more idiosyncratic detail. The processes underlying listening comprehension and skilled reading were similar.…

Recent research is reviewed demonstrating positive effects of bilingualism on cognitive development, some explanation of this research are given, and an interpretation is offered bearing on the variability of memory codes in bilinguals. Results of a study dealing with memory codes are presented and discussed. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

A phenomenon called "pragmatic variation" is discussed as a child's individual system of behavior in response to a question the child doesn't understand but realizes that he must verbalize an answer to. (NCR)

In testing kindergartners and first graders in their comprehension of the words "before" and "after," it was found that when temporal terms are acquired, they are first used as prepositions and then as subordinating conjunctions. (Author/NCR)

Preschool children's comprehension of the adverbial modifiers "very" and "sort of" was experimentally investigated in 64 children. (Author/NCR)

Native signs used as basic kin terms in 20 sign languages from several sign language families are examined. (Author/NCR)

Six-and eight-year olds were exposed to a modeling sequence for cluster rule learning under high, medium, and low degrees of structure. Age differences in vicarious learning emerged only in the medium structure condition, while immediately imitating a model failed to influence learning for either age group. (Author/CP)

High-level behavioral objectives did not produce greater learning than low-level, contrary to previous findings using study questions interspersed through written prose. Overt use of objectives at both levels produced greater learning, supporting the idea that procedures requiring semantic encoding are instructionally superior to those requiring…

Critical features of sound observational studies fall under three categories: the sampling framework; the theoretical model; and the statistical procedure. If the methodology for explanatory, rather than descriptive, observational studies can be applied within these categories, more consistent, convincing, useful explanations of educational…

Theory pertaining to human development suggests that, as students advance through the secondary-school grades, the learning structures should become less restrictive. This research examines the extent to which "structure" within the secondary school environments changes in accordance with growth in students from year 8 to year 12. (Editor/RK)