Reassessment of conventional development conceptions and practice has raised questions about relevance of education to expanded theories of economic development. Previously accepted concepts of development have focused on increased economic productivity, and have assumed a causal connection between the existence of schools and the pace of…

This preliminary study aimed to develop measures that could be used to differentiate kindergartens employing developmentally appropriate and inappropriate instructional practices, and explore the relationship between appropriate and inappropriate practices and stress behaviors of 37 kindergarten children. Four instruments were used to gather data:…

A 9-month longitudinal study of two kindergarten classes compared two types of music instruction: a Kodaly-based developmental music program and a traditional public school music program. The class taught through the Kodaly method received instruction that emphasized the development of rhythmic and melodic perception through visual, aural, and…

A study examined whether writing instruction focusing on organizational patterns has a significant effect on reading comprehension. Writing samples were obtained from 18 second graders, nine of whom received no instruction, while the other nine received instruction on the purpose and use of the topic sentence, adding details to the topic, and…

A study examined the efficacy of the keyword method of vocabulary instruction by comparing it with five methods designed to increase semantic processing of the definitions of the vocabulary words. Subjects in all five experiments were college students. In the first three experiments, recall of the definitions from the vocabulary words was the…

This study examined teaching interactions of single adolescent and young adult mothers during a structured teaching task with their infants. A total of 25 adolescent and 25 adult single mothers were videotaped during 4-minute teaching sessions with their 4-month-old infants in their homes. Investigators rated maternal teaching strategies and the…

An attempt was made to increase Swedish preschool children's understanding of aspects of commercial enterprise, particularly those of "the shop," by introducing a specific didactic approach to preschool education. Of particular interest were two aspects of the shop: advertising and the principle of trade. A total of 77 children up to 7 years of…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a library program utilizing learning centers combined with cooperative learning groups to teach research skills. Thirty-four fourth-grade students were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Students in Group A, the experimental group, were taught research skills in the library by progressing through…

In 1985, Memphis State University designed and implemented two fifth-year internship programs for Arts and Science graduates wanting to become secondary teachers. The 12- and 15-month programs, though packaged slightly diffferently, provide future teachers with the necessary skills for survival in the beginning teaching years and beyond. The…

Following a discussion of the characteristics of an ideal reading program, this paper presents a comparative analysis of two reading programs--one a teacher-created tradebook program and one a commercially prepared basal reader program--and measures them against the ideal. The paper analyzes the programs in terms of the following characteristics:…

A study was conducted to identify the contributions of both prior knowledge and prereading vocabulary instruction to passage comprehension. In addition, semantic mapping and semantic feature analysis--instructional strategies that build upon students' prior knowledge--were compared with a modified basal approach for effectiveness as prereading…

This study investigated the effectiveness of teaching specific rather than global comprehension skills; the correlations among sex, intelligence level, and comprehension gain when taught global or specific comprehension skills; and the correlations between the factors of intelligence, comprehension, and vocabulary without regard for the teaching…

A study was conducted to see whether the people of Burundi would learn English more efficiently if it were presented through the people's native language, Kirundi, rather than through French. Five components were determined for the experiment: lexicon, structure, conversation, pronunciation, and spelling. A survey of 23 advanced students in a…

A six-year-long study investigated the reading instructional strategies used by elementary school teachers and identified those strategies used by effective and less effective teachers. At two-year intervals, all third and sixth grade teachers who taught reading in self-contained classrooms were classified as high, average, or low effective…

The purpose of the investigation was to develop and test an audio-tutorial program for a course in Basic Reference. The design of the investigation was a posttest-only-control group design with 63 students randomly assigned to either an audio-tutorial or a lecture group. Data were collected and analyzed using a t-test for two groups and four…