Educators suggest that children whose families have read to them during their preschool years acquire lexical and syntactic knowledge of sentence-level features typical of written narrative before they begin formal literacy instruction. To test this claim, to discern growth in this knowledge over time and experience, and to describe the lexical…

The fourth annual report on Florida's progress toward excellence in the State University System is presented. A total of 20 "indicators" of quality were used; they include the following seven national measures of efforts toward reaching the upper quartile of state university systems: (1) average full-time faculty salaries, (2) number of…

The fifth annual report on Florida's progress toward excellence in education within its state university system describes the status of the system according to 20 indicators of quality. They include the following seven national measures of efforts toward reaching the upper quartile of state university systems: (1) average full-time faculty…

Results of the fourth annual survey of over 5,000 college faculty in all types of higher education institutions are reported. The information gathered is organized in eight categories: the goals of collegiate education; academic standards; attitudes about student life; teaching, research, and service; the status of the profession; views of the…

Prepared to help Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) improve its recruitment/retention efforts and graduation and transfer rates, this paper presents a review of the literature relating to recruitment, retention, and teaching strategies for the culturally diverse minority community college student. Chapter 1 discusses the growing concern over the…

Selected through a refereed process from presentations given by speakers at the "1987 Outdoor Education across America: Weaving the Web" Conference, the content represents philosophy, ideas, program activities, and research of outdoor practitioners and leaders across America. The 25 presentations/workshops are summarized under the broad…

Reflecting diversified views, this National Reading Conference yearbook contains 45 articles in the field of literacy theory and research. Articles and their authors include: "The Myth of Teaching" (J. V. Hoffman); "Reading-Writing Connections: The Relations among Three Perspectives" (T. Shanahan and R. J. Tierney);…

A holistic analysis of the dropout problem is presented in this collection of essays, which critically examines a variety of research traditions. The book examines the major groups within the dropout population, factors within schools that contribute to dropping out, and the larger social and economic context within which dropping out occurs.…

A study was conducted of four urban middle schools in Boston serving 1,600 students, mostly from low-income minority families, to assess urban public school effectiveness. School level practices were the primary focus of the study, but self-reports of classroom teaching behaviors were also studied in relation to student achievement through…

Focusing on how secondary school reading programs can be organized and on how their effectiveness can be measured, this book synthesizes reading research in several significant areas and makes concrete suggestions for using this research to improve reading instruction. Each chapter, opens with a question posed by a teacher, discusses research with…

An initiative to promote excellence in South Carolina's higher education system is presented by the State Commission on Higher Education in two documents. The first is a descriptive summary of rationales and recommendations in six areas. The second document is a report which includes and expands the material of the first document. Twenty-five…

A study examined whether scaffolding (the interaction that emerges when novices and experts work cooperatively) can be extended if the scaffolding model for facilitating problem-solving instruction is imposed. Eight teachers were instructed and coached in the use of scaffolding to teach first graders listening comprehension skills. When a group of…

The Flind Middle Schools Writing Inservice Project grew out of the conviction that improving students' writing was a matter not of increased emphasis on sentence structure, grammar, or form, but rather of a change in the thinking about how writing should be taught. The project grew from a brief conference to a two-year commitment on the part of…

Educational outreach programs of Los Alamos National Laboratory assist rural educators in strengthening science curricula; encourage students to take science, math, and English courses; and create a good neighbor policy between the laboratory and rural communities/schools in predominantly Hispanic/American Indian northern New Mexico. The program,…

This paper provides a perspective on issues among small schools in Canada through an analysis of topics that focus on Ontario. During the early phase of the small school movement, many educators believed that "small" represented a deleterious condition. After researchers examined negative conditions among larger schools, however,…