Reading instruction and placing students into groups emphasizes a plethora of approaches. Each method of grouping for instructional purposes should stress providing for learners' individual purposes. Which plans are appropriate for grouping students for reading instruction? Team teaching has many advocates, but it has both advantages and…

Queried 571 elementary school principals in 12 states to determine: (1) the frequency of nontraditional (combination and nongraded) classes; and (2) changes in the use of combination classes during recent years. Found that although combination classes represented 17% of California classrooms, most states contained only 3 to 7%. Nongraded classes…

The major goals of the project reported here were to learn how teachers who are effective managers handle beginning-of-the-year activities and to determine what basic principles of management underlie their teaching. Twenty-seven third-grade teachers in eight elementary schools served as subjects. (MP)

This study compared the effects of multi-age classroom strategies to those of traditional classroom strategies on the academic achievement of fourth grade students in reading and math. Standardized test scores from 20 fourth-grade students in two multi-age third- and fourth-grade classrooms were compared to the scores of 20 students from 7…

A year-long ethnographic case study was conducted primarily to investigate the developmental nature of children's spontaneous grouping activities in an elementary school setting. Participant observation and related methods were conducted for two days a week (on average) in a small, traditional parochial school located in a lower-class integrated…

This study examined the effects of grouping students by ability or achievement on middle school students' academic achievement. Mathematics achievement scores from the California Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) were obtained from 25 seventh graders randomly selected from a group of 80 who had received instruction in an ability-grouped setting for…

Student interaction patterns in eight elementary school classrooms were examined to investigate (1) the relationship between interaction patterns and sociometric indicators of friends, (2) the process by which children become stratified, and (3) the structure of peer relationships in classrooms. Chapter 1, the introduction, briefly discusses the…

Two studies combining teacher questionnaires, classroom observation, and pupil interviews were conducted to contrast formal and informal teaching practices in open plan and conventional classrooms. Study I sampled 12 teachers of classes including second year junior pupils (8-9 years of age); Study II sampled 30 teachers, including 13 with mixed…