Examined the effects of mothers' conversations with their children on children's emergent literacy. Found a clear and fairly strong relationship between maternal conversation and children's literacy, especially for children's print concepts, vocabulary, and story comprehension skills. Children's early conversational participation showed a stronger…

Conservation and metaphor acquisition were studied in 35 hearing-impaired children (ages 6-19) using either cued speech or oral-aural communication. Significant positive relationships were found between conservation and metaphor in both communication modes, age and metaphor, and age and conservation. Neither conservation nor metaphor was related…

The hearing ability and related cognitive ability of 26 adolescents and young adults with Down's Syndrome (DS) and 26 matched subjects with trainable mental retardation (MR) were compared. Results revealed greater hearing losses in DS than in other MR individuals, especially in the high-frequency range. DS subjects with poorer hearing needed more…

The performance of 20 children with educable mental retardation (ages 8 to 12) and 20 verbal mental age-matched nonretarded controls was compared on identifying emotional facial expressions and producing the equivalent word adjectives. There were no significant differences between the two groups in general, despite the fact that children with…

Four experiments with 23 second graders in Haifa (Israel) tested the hypothesis that comprehension gains in fast-paced reading are attributable primarily to changes in short-term memory (STM) functioning. Results confirm the hypothesis, providing support for a causal role of STM functioning in text processing. (SLD)

Reports a study that examined the generalizability of selective-attention and academic-studying hypotheses to a modified science chart medium. The adjunct questions used in this study were designed to selectively focus students' attention on specific columns in a modified science chart, with the goal of improving student achievement on a test…

To clarify what it means to teach mathematics for understanding and to learn mathematics with understanding, an interactional analysis of video recordings of two lessons in elementary school classrooms is presented. The two classrooms illustrate two distinct classroom traditions, in which mathematics was learned with and without understanding,…

Examines strategic differences between more and less competent novices in story-sorting, problem-solving tasks by comparing two Hong Kong primary school teachers, two competent and two less competent secondary students on problem-solving tasks. Indicates subjects used a wide variety of solution strategies. Suggests that success depended on how…

Four brief notes offer practical suggestions for persons working with the visually impaired, including teaching handwriting skills to blinded adults; improving reading comprehension skills; facilitating independent mobility with an electrically powered wheelchair; and utilizing telecommunications. (DB)

After finding that French language learning was declining in Rio de Janeiro schools because of inadequate resources, oversized classes, and irrelevant curricula, several teachers turned to a magazine for adolescents for motivating students to read. Extracts from an article and a series of exercises developing varied competencies illustrate the…

Provides 14 annotated citations from the ERIC database that focus on reading diagnosis, assessment, and remediation of learning-disabled college students. (PRA)

Provides before-, during-, and after-reading strategies to help students develop reading goals, monitor comprehension, and reflect on what they read. A reading wheel and student pages encourage practice of new strategies. Across the curriculum strategies are included for building comprehension in other curriculum areas. (SM)

This study, involving 48 children and adolescents with Down's syndrome, found that chronological age and mean mental age collectively accounted for much of subjects' variability in vocabulary comprehension and syntax comprehension, with total passes on a hearing screening accounting for additional variability. (Author/DB)

Conceptions of 50 third graders (aged 8-9 years) in Italy about shopkeepers' profit were examined using the Piagetian clinical procedure, with an interview followed by a comparison task that checked comprehension. Teaching children about profit had a higher impact at posttest on children who could compare correctly. (SLD)

Describes a restructured Chapter 1 program that provided supplemental support within the students' classrooms to raise expectations for Chapter 1 students' performance. Notes that expectations of teachers and students increased; portfolios of student work showed steady improvement in reading comprehension and writing ability; and standardized test…