Presents two activities based on the poem, "Cat in the Snow," to help beginning readers learn to decode print and develop fluency. The first activity has students look at the poet's words. The second activity has students talk about the poet's language and message. A tear-our sheet offers the poem, "Cat in the Snow." (SM)

A longitudinal study of 363 elementary school students over five years investigated the degree to which reading comprehension, vocabulary, reading pleasure, and reading frequency later in life can be predicted and the way that path models and common factor models explain these relationships. Linkages among these factors are explored. (SLD)

Examines student conceptions of their experiences with science, describes the variety of those conceptions over the years of schooling, and investigates patterns across those years. Six categories of conceptions were found, each portraying essential meanings of science. Results suggest making modern philosophical views of the nature of science…

Argues that some important aspects of listening as an interactive skill have been neglected in second-language teaching, including the receipt tokens "yeah,""mm hm," and "mm," and that such items should be taught as part of the development of conversational skills. Characteristics of these items' placement in talk sequences, prosodic shape, pause…

Analyzes the production and perception of illocutionary forms. Using a semantic neutralization procedure, the performance of children (5, 7, and 9 years old) and adults was compared in two experiments focusing on prosodic representations in production and perception tasks. (Author/JL)

Describes the design and implementation of a CD-ROM-based German exercise package for commercial distribution and a listening and culture package using interactive multimedia based on authentic German television programs. The project demonstrates how a set of specialized authoring tools can be brought to bear upon the real-world needs and…

Describes a course that was designed to provide instruction in the methods and procedures that can be utilized to enhance student comprehension of textbooks and other printed materials that are encountered in a content area. Discusses instructor concerns, the support system, planning, course assignments, students, instructor workload, and course…

Results of two studies support the contention that teaching metacognitive strategies with the aid of software packages can enhance positive transfer of reading comprehension and writing skills in very able fifth (n=140) and seventh (n=136) grade learners in Israel. Students receiving metacognitive instruction and using writing-skills software…

Describes metacognitive processing strategies employed by nonnative readers of German who read and recalled authentic texts. Findings indicate that second-language readers of German engage in metacognition, using the following strategies: awareness of text format and attention to trivial detail, and an ability to monitor comprehension and identify…

An instructional prereading using American Sign Language (ASL) was effective in improving the ability of 7 prelingually deaf children (ages 11 and 12) to understand and retell a story after reading it in print. A six-step procedure for using the ASL technique is explained. Other applications of the technique and its appropriateness for public…

This article offers suggestions for teaching effective learning strategies to low-achieving students. It considers selecting the strategy, getting students involved, describing the strategy, modeling the strategy, remembering the strategy, practicing the strategy, and generalizing the strategy. Examples in composition and reading are offered. (DB)

This study investigated the validity of 3 curriculum-based measures for predicting the performance of 184 secondary students (including 13 with mild disabilities) on content-area tasks. Reliable correlations were found between oral reading, maze, and vocabulary measures; and students' performance on comprehension, acquisition, and retention of…

Investigates college/university professors' views on English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students' difficulties with listening/speaking tasks. Findings show that respondents felt that their ESL students have great difficulty with class participation, asking and responding to questions, and general listening comprehension. (55 references) (Author/CK)

Low-achieving second graders experienced a year of transactional strategies instruction (n=30) or highly regarded, more conventional second-grade reading instruction (n=30). The group receiving transactional strategies instruction had greater strategy awareness and use, greater acquisition of material read, and superior performance on standardized…

Examined the effect of background knowledge and second language proficiency in relation to two sets of specific reading materials. One came from an IELTS reading module related to science and technology; the other was from a highly-specific popular science text. Results showed that both language proficiency and background knowledge predicted…