Research in second language acquisition and the learning of mathematics has matured through long, albeit disconnected, histories. This study examines how theories and models of second language acquisition can be applied to the learning of mathematics and, through this, develops a novel framework defining stages in the learning of mathematics. This…

Recent research indicates that content structure is, to some extent, mapped into cognitive structure. This study examines whether or not mapping of content structure into cognitive structure is related to students' ability to recall the content. Findings indicate that the cognitive structure of students with high recall ability does not resemble…

Certain thinking and language skills are common to content disciplines. Different types of thinking are triggered by factual, convergent, divergent, and judgmental questions. The four levels of oral and written response are factual, logical, creative, and judgmental. An effective school language policy balances and integrates these skills in the…

Concludes that there is a relationship between imagery level and comprehension and that imagery level of text can be determined "a priori" of pupils reading text. (FL)

A group of 144 kindergarten and third grade students heard stories in which the information necessary to infer the protagonist's motives was varied as to its form and location in a story sequence. In all story variations, the semantic content of the information was held constant. All children completed three tasks: a moral judgment concerning the…

Research on teachers' question-asking practices indicates that strategy utilizing both initial and follow-up questions helps students develop the ability to reason for themselves. Five types of follow-up questions discussed are questions seeking: (1) clarification; (2) evidence; (3) greater specificity; (4) a more appropriate focus; and (5)…

Cognitive process instruction takes a constructivist view of education and emphasizes that students must be actively involved in learning, not merely recipients of information. Four basic descriptive model-building frameworks characterize the work related to cognitive process instruction: (1) a developmental framework, (2) a microanalytic…

Research generally indicates that imagery facilitates children's learning on basic memory tasks, such as paired-associate learning. The role of imagery in prose recall is less well defined, however. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the construction of mental images on eight year old's ability to recall progressively…

Examines how six high school juniors approached three common study tasks: completing short answer study questions, taking notes, and writing essays. Concludes that different study activities involve students in very different thinking patterns and also lead to different kinds of learning. (HOD)

Focusing on what authors can do to facilitate learning from content area textbooks, this report labels authors as "considerate," providing text that readers can understand with a minimum of cognitive effort, or as "inconsiderate," creating text that requires a conscientious, highly skilled effort if readers are to comprehend…

A study was conducted to examine learning from textbook sentences that provide examples. It was predicted that an example written succinctly and with a word order that emphasized its parallel semantic relations with the exemplified principle, such as "animals have parasites; dogs have fleas," would have a positive effect on idea comprehension. It…

Examines the concept of the cognitively active learner and discusses the following categories of learning strategies: rehearsal, elaboration, organization, comprehension monitoring, and affective. (NKA)

The relationship between placement of adjunct questions in instructional material and incidental and intentional learning was investigated. A total of 150 undergraduate students assigned to five experimental groups studied ten paragraphs with questions interspersed at different locations in the text. Performance on incidental items was…

To assess children's ability to draw inferences from selections of children's literature and to measure the significance of various selected factors to this ability was the problem of this study. Children (432) were evenly divided among grades 4, 5, and 6 and randomly divided at each grade level into two equal groups, one of which read the…

A study sought to identify the cognitive strategies or techniques that expert middle school teachers use to help mainstreamed students learn from content area texts. Twenty middle school social studies and science teachers who had been identified as teachers who worked well with mainstreamed students were interviewed concerning what they thought…