Study investigated incidental learning of word meanings from context during normal reading. Effects of word and text properties were examined in detail. Small but reliable gains in knowledge were found at all grade levels and ability levels tested. (RB)

Research concerning the applied educational potential of Richard Atkinson's mnemonic "keyword method" is reported in this paper. Included are possibilities for stretching the limits of the keyword method by combining it with other mnemonic and prose-learning strategies. The first half of the paper provides an overview of mnemonics--the…

Children's communication performance improves with age, which could result from increases in children's vocabularies, changes in their strategies of selecting messages from their vocabularies, or both. Three experiments were conducted to evaluate these explanations. Two types of communication tasks were employed. These data suggest younger…

A no-cost, easy to use technique for increasing the reading vocabulary of beginning readers is described in this report. A large number of common words can be elicited from children in a word-association game, to which children respond with words that are highly meaningful to them, and often to their culture. The children then use these words to…

As an extension of an earlier investigation that examined the effects of mnemonic strategy application on children's memory for abstract prose passages, a study compared the benefits accrued by students taught two different variations of the mnemonic keyword method for learning abstract prose information, via tasks of associative recognition and…

Ways in which semantic mapping can be used for general vocabulary development, as a prewriting and prereading activity, as a postreading activity, and as a study skill strategy are presented in this teaching guide. The first two sections provide an introduction to semantic mapping, and outline the three most common uses of semantic mapping as an…

Stressing language development as the prime component of all learning, this resource book presents suggestions to teachers to aid them in developing children's descriptive language. Basic to the described activities is the concept that vocabulary development is essentially concept development, requires a variety of experiences, and results from…