Four models for accounting for reading difficulties are described: defect, deficit, disruption, and difference. Poor readers fitting two of these (difference and deficit) are compared with each other and with good readers. (Author)

Four experiments evaluate the effectiveness of a two-stage mnemonic procedure, the keyword method, for learning Spanish vocabulary. This method proved highly effective, yielding in one experiment a final test score of 88 percent correct for the keyword group compared to 28 percent for the control group. (Author/RC)

Implicitly repeating categories by presenting words not present in the original categorized list but logically members of previously studied categories significantly increased acquisition and retention relative to repeating category labels, repeating members of categories, and repeating neither labels nor members. The efficiency of repetition…

The effect of labels influences nursery school children to process or store information about associated pictures more effectively than they would have done in the absence of labels. (Author/DEP)

The keyword method of vocabulary learning was compared with five methods designed to increase semantic processing of the definitions of vocabulary words. The method enhanced vocabulary/definition (associative) learning, but not definition (response) learning per se. In contrast, the semantic conditions tended to increase nonassociative learning of…

The associations from phoneme to grapheme appeared to be considerably easier than the associations from grapheme to phoneme. (Authors)

Elaborative interrogation was compared to the construction of imaginary representations to determine its efficacy in fact learning. Four experiments, involving a total of 260 undergraduate students, indicated that elaborative interrogation is equally as powerful a learning procedure as is imaginary representation and that both are useful during…

Results suggested that: cue encoding leads to greater associative recall; there was no difference in likelihood of associative recall between items encoded in a stable manner and items encoded in an unstable manner; and encouraging to encode cues did not facilitate associative recall. (Authors)

Investigates the hypothesis that school achievement deficiencies of low socioeconomic status black children are attributable to corresponding deficiencies in learning ability. (Author/TA)

The effects of phonic blend training on word decoding were compared in two groups of 4-year-old children, one that was proficient at segmenting syllables into individual phonemes in terms of the Fox-Routh test and another group that did not have this proficiency. (BJG)

Evidence is presented to demonstrate that arranging word lists on distinctive visual patterns results in better recall performance than does presenting the same word lists on a pattern that is always the same. Results of three experiments using college age students are reported. (Author/LMO)