The authors assessed the extent to which a generative prereading activity known as Story Impressions (SI), or composing a guess from clues, influences passage recall relative to a more passive prereading activity of reading a Content Preview (CP). The results from 74 eighth-grade students indicated the CP groups equaled the reading-only control…

A 12-week retention program designed to assist at-risk students with test-taking, study and career skills through individual and group counseling was examined. Sixty-nine percent of the program participants attained a cumulative GPA [greater than or equal] 2.0 by the end of the intervention compared to 43% of the control group. Further, 55% of the…

Purpose: We assess the effects of racial or ethnic concordance between caregivers and interventionists on caregiver attrition, change in depression, and change in burden in a multisite randomized clinical trial. Design and Methods: Family caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease were randomized to intervention or control groups at six sites…

Purpose: This study explores the effects of participation in a program designed to enrich friendship and reduce loneliness among women in later life. Several hypotheses based on the need to belong, socioemotional selectivity theory, and the social compensation model were tested. Design and Methods: Study 1 involved two measurement points, one at…

Reduced verbal working memory capacity has been proposed as a possible account of language impairments in specific language impairment (SLI). Studies have shown, however, that differences in strength of linguistic representations in the form of word frequency affect list recall and performance on verbal working memory tasks. This suggests that…

This study investigated the effectiveness of combining conceptual change text and discussion web strategies on students' understanding of photosynthesis and respiration in plants. Students' conceptual understanding of photosynthesis and respiration in plants was measured using the two-tier diagnostic test developed by Haslam and Treagust (1987,…

Two experiments examined reliability and classification accuracy of a narration-based dynamic assessment task. Purpose: The first experiment evaluated whether parallel results were obtained from stories created in response to 2 different wordless picture books. If so, the tasks and measures would be appropriate for assessing pretest and posttest…

This study reports two different experiments, as a part of a longitudinal study, that evaluated a cognitive intervention (PREP: PASS Reading Enhancement Program) to enhance early phonological processing skills, such as odd-word-out, segmenting, and blending, to kindergarten children at-risk for reading difficulties, in order to support the…

Individual differences in academic success were investigated in a geographically defined whole-population sample of very preterm children with a gestational age of less than 32 weeks or a birth weight of less than 1500 gm. The sample consisted of 264 very preterm children (75.6% of German-speaking survivors) and 264 controls matched for gender,…

This study examined the effectiveness of the Montana Early Literacy Project (MELP) curriculum on literacy and language skills of preschool-age children in Head Start. The MELP model utilizes everyday events and existing routines of classroom and home environments to build literacy and language directly into children's daily experiences. Using a…

It is believed that learners who experience barriers to learning and development are at risk for formal education and that stimulation can off set these barriers, ensuring that learners are able to actualise their potential. An intervention programme was designed with the aim of improving abilities in learners who had not yet attained the learning…

The present study aims to investigate whether the learning materials that based on constructivist learning principles have an effect on fifth grade Social Studies students' attitudes, their academic success and their retention. The study was conducted at Sehit Ali Gaffar Okkan Elementary School, Eskisehir. The participants of the study were 5th…

Task-based learning is a popular topic in ELT/EFL circles nowadays. It is accepted by its proponents as a flourishing method that may replace Communicative Language Learning. However, it can also be seen as an adventure just because there are almost no experimental studies to tackle questions concerning applicability of Task-based Learning. In…

This study was designed to assess the impact of "Mathematics Pathways and Pitfalls" ("MPP") on the mathematics that second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade students learn. The specific research questions that were addressed are: (a) What is the impact of "MPP" on students' knowledge of the mathematics topics addressed,…

The current study aims at investigating the effect of a suggested CALL program on developing EFL learners' mechanics of writing in English. An unbiased simple random sample of eighty fourth-year students (2006/2007) of the English Department at the Faculty of Education in Kafr El-Sheikh has been chosen to carry out the experiment. Forty students…