Develops a three sequence program through which elementary-grade children can follow the "picture to paragraph" structure to mastery of comprehension skills ranging from simple details to construction of a report in a content area. (MD)

Ideas for incorporating five essential writing skills, identified by the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills, into elementary social studies courses are presented. These include spelling, organizing ideas in writing, a knowledge of standard punctuation and capitalization, ability to control sentence structure, and use of legible handwriting for…

Describes a program that gives psychology students practice in written and oral communication. It involves students in writing an abstract of a journal article and in making an oral presentation. Writing and speaking skills, along with methodology, may be the most enduring legacy of introductory psychology courses. (CS)

A reanalysis of data from a 1980 Miami University study on sentence-combining in freshman writing courses investigated the role of reading comprehension (measured by the Sequential Test of Educational Progress) as a predictor of growth in writing skills (measured by syntactic and qualitative criteria). (Author/PN)

A project is described that aims: (1) to give undergraduate pharmacy students an understanding of the complexities of communicating medication information to patients, and (2) to teach skills in the design, analysis, and evaluation of written patient medication information. Materials students developed were evaluated by fellow students (MSE)

Describes computer programs designed to assist in teaching composition. These include an elementary school writing program, poetry writing programs, and four writing/editing programs (dealing with text already written and needing revision or for helping students develop a higher level of sophistication with specific skills already demonstrated in…

Describes Pikeville College's Read Writer course for high-risk, low-entry students, which combines reading and writing instruction in larger-than-average classes. Delineates the rationale for the program's development; program procedures, which include the Macrorie approach to teaching; participant responses; and program outcomes in terms of pre-…

Learning disabled, educable mentally retarded, trainable mentally retarded, and gifted students (fifth through eighth grade) participated in a supplemental computer-assisted project in the Farrell Middle School (Farrell, Pennsylvania) to improve students' skills in the areas of computation, concept development, problem solving, and application.…

A three-year study compared entry-level and junior-level clinically oriented reading and writing skills of 231 medical students. Entry-level skills were found to be the best predictors of clinical skills. Inclusion of communication skills training in admission criteria and/or medical curriculum are recommended. (Author/MSE)

Illustrates the use of the creative writing activity "choose your own ending," in which junior high school students structure a story by writing two responses to major points in a plot. (RL)

The test scores of college freshmen given both a multiple choice test and an essay test of writing skills were compared to assess the validity of a multiple choice test compared with an essay test. (HOD)

Reviews a research project that investigated the roles reading and writing play in children's growing knowledge of social interactions. (FL)

Explains why reenacting trial scenes from literature should be a useful reading, writing, and speaking activity in English classrooms. (RL)