Uses an analysis of children's interpretations of a complex episode of social interaction to illustrate three features that distinguish them from robot plans and that form a basis for a theory of the development of social action: human plans (1) are social, (2) operate on interpretations, and (3) are used, not just executed. (FL)

Reports the results of a study showing that one stylistic feature, the inclusion of connectives other than "and/then" is a good predictor of explanation in five- to ten-year-olds, but a straightforward lack of linguistic resources is not necessarily what limits older children's achievement of explanatory narrative. (HTH)

Discusses nontext knowledge necessary for reading comprehension. Examines the composition of children's real world knowledge for ordinary situations. (FL)

Examines the role of nontext social knowledge on elementary school children and college students' understanding of protagonist-antagonist stories, noting some developmental changes in the understanding of these stories based on knowledge of persuasion. (FL)

Presents a case study of an elementary school child with a learning disability to illustrate that both performance and disability have to be understood in terms of the social environments with which they are linked. (FL)

Compares the performance of Black, Hispanic, and Anglo students on a story unscrambling task to determine if sociocultural differences in story schemata affect reading comprehension. Shows some effects suggesting that the three groups have somewhat different strategies for choosing initial and final sentences and for making narratives coherent.…