As reading is vital to success in life and opens the door to nearly all other learning opportunities, it is essential that educators understand why students with learning how to read. Therefore, it is key for both professionals and researchers to establish their own approaches to assist those with reading difficulties. "Developing Effective…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessment measures students' knowledge and skills in mathematics and students' ability to apply their knowledge in problem-solving situations. At each grade, students responded to questions designed to measure what they know and can do across five mathematics content areas: number…

Many factors influence a student's performance in word (or textbook) problem solving in class. Among them is the comprehension process the pupils construct during their attempt to solve the problem. The comprehension process may include some less formal representations, based on pupils' real-world knowledge, which support the construction of a…

This practice guide presents five recommendations intended to help educators improve students' understanding of, and problem-solving success with, fractions. Recommendations progress from proposals for how to build rudimentary understanding of fractions in young children; to ideas for helping older children understand the meaning of fractions and…

An investigation was conducted to identify and compare the reasoning strategies used by above-average and average readers in reading comprehension. Findings indicated that both groups used various types of reasoning strategies in comprehension, but that there were significant quantitative differences between the groups in application and success…

The theme of this report is that recent theory and research related to the cognitive domain of children's comprehension of stories have implications for the social domain of children's understanding of interpersonal interaction, since there are important overlaps between the abilities necessary to comprehend stories about social events and those…

This study sought to answer whether children can adjust their evaluation of essays according to standards expressed in the instructions. The question of whether the relative difficulty of detecting inconsistencies and falsehoods depends on the type of problem children are trying to find was addressed. (Author/GK)

The study examined whether teaching 24 elementary disabled readers a structured inferencing strategy using materials sequentially arranged from easy to more difficult would improve their ability to answer inferential questions. Results suggested that disabled readers' apparent problems in answering inferential qustions may exist because of a lack…

Reviews the conditions for reading comprehension applicable to solving math word problems. Describes the approaches used by three bilingual teachers to enhance the problem-solving skills of second language learners. (NH)

Discusses five research areas offering guidance to people concerned about teaching problem solving in elementary schools. Areas are (1) components of problem difficulty; (2) the contribution of reading difficulties to problem-solving deficiencies; (3) characteristics of successful problem solvers; (4) children's use of problem-solving techniques…

Reports on a study that examined which of four major components of word problem solving ability was currently keeping a student from solving word problems. Reviews two recent series of supplementary materials that show promise for helping teachers improve their students' problem interpretation. (FL)

Young children and college-age adults were read short stories describing a consistent or inconsistent adult response to a child's action and were given additional information that resolved or failed to resolve the inconsistency. Results concerned subjects' abilities to detect and resolve the inconsistency and to repair a comprehension problem in…

While a science teacher needs to be thoroughly grounded in science content and methodology, the science teacher also needs to be a reading teacher. Science experiments and demonstrations need to be integrated with reading in the science curriculum. Reading in science helps students with comprehension, the development of concepts and…

The extent to which kindergarten children are able to solve simple quantitative problems merely through the application of counting procedures, before they receive formal instruction in any basic arithmetic operations, is investigated. The study indicates that most kindergarten children can comprehend simple story problems of the type used in…

Identifies kinds of thinking that fit naturally into elementary social studies curricula, using models of thinking that are not complex. Models include general problem solving skills and skills pertaining to specific types of intellectual tasks, such as comprehending information, solving specific problems, researching topics, and making decisions.…