An analysis of longitudinal data on a sample of low-income mothers and children was conducted to identify maternal characteristics during pregnancy and infancy that predict child school adaptation during kindergarten. The sample consisted of low-income mothers recruited while receiving prenatal services from public health clinics. The children,…

A longitudinal study of early adolescents examined gender differences in attitude and behavior, as well as the effects of pubertal change, parental expectations, and parental support. It was hypothesized that sex differences would emerge during preadolescence and that males' and females' rates of change would be significantly different. Subjects…

B. S. Bloom's theory of school learning states that three independent variables account for most of the variation in students' achievement: cognitive entry behaviors (CEB), affective entry characteristics, and the quality of instruction. These variables determine the nature of learning outcomes--level and type of achievement, rate of learning, and…

Poor, minority, and low ability students suffer most from the general lack of sustained opportunity to study mathematics in American public schools. Studies indicate that preschool and kindergarten students show only minor social class or racial differences in mathematical thinking and that differences in mathematical performance among older…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 27 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effect of the single-parent family on reading comprehension and attitude toward reading; (2) the relationship between first grade children's reading…

Many educators and researchers who believe that girls have less mathematical ability than boys associate this deficiency with girls' inferior spatial ability. This generally accepted belief that spatial skills are a major prerequisite for math achievement was tested through a study of the visual-spatial skills of a sample of 32 professional…

This paper examines factors that contribute to or inhibit the academic achievement of black students. The study is based on a process model that seeks to define interrelationships among the following elements: (1) the societal context, which is the level of prescriptive ideologies and structures; (2) the institutional context, which is the level…

The 1986 and 1988 Reading Objectives Assessment of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reflects a consensus of opinion about the processes of reading for grades 4, 8, and 12. The objectives are based on an interpretation of reading as an interactive process between the reader, the reader's purposes and previous experiences, the…

Reported are the main activities undertaken in Israel during 1984 as part of the implementation of the Agam Method of Visual Education for preschool children. When the program's curriculum units were translated from the French, a revised version of the Agam Program was developed which involved no major changes in program content. Program…

The paper describes an approach for identifying intervention strategies, techniques, procedures, and activities designed to enhance the developmental competencies of handicapped, mentally retarded, developmentally disabled, and at risk children (birth to 4 years of age). Curriculum procedures are classified according to domains of intervention and…

A project that investigated the metalinguistic awareness of adults (what they know about language as distinct from their ability to use language) is described and summarized in this final report. Subjects were 60 monolingual English speakers and 26 bilingual (Spanish and English) speakers enrolled in adult education classes. They fell into three…

The National Science Foundation funded a project to: (1) identify major areas of science education research in which sufficient studies have been conducted to permit useful generalizations for educational practice; (2) conduct meta-analyses of each of these areas; and (3) prepare a compendium of these meta-analyses along with interpretative and…

The ability to correctly answer reading comprehension test items, without having read the accompanying reading passage, was compared for third grade learning disabled students and their peers from a regular classroom. In the first experiment, fourteen multiple choice items were selected from the Stanford Achievement Test. No reading passages were…

To investigate whether teachers asked questions during reading lessons in order to evaluate rather than teach comprehension, the discourse of 11 reading lessons was audiotaped in four elementary school classrooms. Transcripts of the lessons were analyzed to identify the function and source of teacher questions and the accuracy, cognitive level,…

Systematic changes in their classroom environments occur when students make the transition from upper-elementary to junior high school. Students typically experience a transition from a self-contained classroom to departmentalized instruction in junior high school; they often also experience a transition from heterogeneous to homogeneous,…