Before children can make sense of phonics study, they first must learn that print conveys meaning. Children who do not have this foundation concept may do phonics workbook pages, but without understanding or processing the concepts. That is why--unlike books on traditional phonics teaching--this book emphasizes the making of sound instructional…

The authors developed a Web-based Adaptive Educational System (Web-based AES) named ITMS (Individualized Teaching Material System). ITMS adaptively integrates knowledge on the distributed Web pages and generates individualized teaching material that has various contents. ITMS also presumes the learners' knowledge levels from the states of their…

Curiosity is a heightened state of interest resulting in exploration, and its importance in motivating scholarship cannot be ignored. It is also a critical component of creativity, and fostering curiosity and creativity in today's learners is a challenge faced by educators and instructional designers alike. Following a background on the definition…

Discusses changes in teacher education for reading instruction, especially the increasing emphasis on competency attainment. (TO)

I/D/E/A's Individually Guided Program pulls together promising practices and new concepts to make a school "everything it could be", claims the author of this article. He describes the elements of this program and how a school can consider adopting it. (Editor)

Article considered some general directions for elementary education, which were inferred from a brief overview of the major trends since the early 1960's. (Author/RK)

Independent learning and teaching is an educational system in which the learner is autonomous, and separated from his teacher by space and time, so that communication is by print, electronic, or other nonhuman medium. (Author)

These comments on open education, team teaching, focus on skills, individualized learning; and, felxible and community electives are part of a report written for the Ford Foundation by the former director of the Curriculum Laboratory of Goldsmith's College, University of London. (JM)

Shorthand courses at Brigham Young University have been organized to allow individual student progress using audio equipment and cassette tapes. Grading standards have been set up according to competency levels with immediate advancement available upon completion of each competency level. An evaluation of the program is included in the report. (DS)

Describes the process by which a small elementary system (Windsor, Connecticut) combined Individually Guided Instruction and open education. (Author)

Examines some alternative approaches to teaching science in the elementary school, and in particular compares the attributes of instructional approaches to those of experimental approaches. (JR)

Freedom (i.e. choice) within a predefined educational structure can be simply another form of constraint. This illusion of freedom serves predetermined social expectations; innovations like the open classroom exchange old methods of teaching social conformity for new ones. (JH)

Describes how some media centers and libraries are effectively using video cassettes to individualize learning. (TO)

Presents one example of an individualized and open social studies course wherein the class became a microcosm of the community and discusses the values of such an approach. (TO)