Examined effects of short-term memory, age, and reading ability on the instructional effectiveness of imagery during reading of sentences among fourth and sixth graders, half of whom were instructed to construct images representing sentence meanings. Half were uninstructed. Imagery instructions had a positive effect on learning efficiency among…

Studies the effect of the use of the male generic on imagery. Finds that male bias is higher in the masculine generic condition than in the unbiased condition, and that male subjects are more male-biased than female subjects. Discusses findings in terms of linguistic relativity, prototypicality, and activation of multiple meanings. (FMW)

Evaluated the effectiveness of using a hypertext/hypermedia environment for the teaching of second language Spanish vocabulary in a semantic mapping format among 48 high school students who had never studied Spanish. Results found no significant difference between semantic mapping and traditional word listing approaches to vocabulary development.…

Examined the ability of Grade 8 intermediate and advanced learners of French to collaboratively complete a text reconstruction task, focusing on the students' discussion of the form of the message they were constructing. Results indicated that students gained awareness of gaps in their existing knowledge and links between the form, function, and…

Different models of spoken word production make different predictions regarding the extent of effects of certain word properties on the output of that model. This article examines these predictions with regard to the effect of these variables on the production of semantic and phonological errors by aphasic subjects. (60 references) (Author/CK)

This article discusses word definitions within the context of language development in school-age children and adolescents. It explains the importance of the ability to define words, reviews the growth of word definition during school years, describes standardized tests, and offers suggestions for expanding the normative database for word…

Discusses some aspects of the Japanese language that look inexplicable at first but that turn out to be explainable by pragmatic principles shared with English. Focus is placed on how the Japanese choose a particular word to use in a sentence involving indirect quotations, when the words would be synonyms in other languages. (20 references) (GLR)

Studied emergent literacy in Hebrew by analyzing nursery and kindergarten children's attempts to write and read pairs of nouns. Found that, with age, children's sensitivity to phonology increased and sensitivity to semantics decreased and that these sensitivities played a greater role in literacy acquisition than did sensitivity to morphology. (MM)

This paper discusses five language roots of reading: phonology, syntax, semantics, short-term and long-term memory, and auditory segmenting. Teachers are urged to focus early school experiences toward development of these five skills to reduce the incidence of reading difficulties. Specific teaching suggestions are offered. (Author/DB)

Explores the nature of language from a linguistic viewpoint and describes how mathematics can be seen to be a foreign language by students. Describes how natural language reading strategies provide language-specific problems to mathematics teachers. (MDH)

Various theories of learning for the categories "count noun" and "mass noun" are compared. It is argued that children assign words to these categories on the basis of intuitions arising from perception that are relevant to Macnamara's (1986) definitions of the categories. (39 references) (GLR)

Presents two cognitive models that illustrate the commonalities between reading for meaning and solving mathematical problems with meaning. Discusses the importance of number sense in the prior knowledge component of the solving with meaning model and the implications of the models in teaching mathematics. (MDH)

Forty postsecondary students who were deaf were required to recall lists of eight words. Students with higher levels of English language proficiency recalled significantly more than those with lower levels. Semantic pairing aided the low-level group more than the high-level group, whereas syntactic organization aided the high-level group more.…

This response to EC 604 058 argues that Marc Fey's emphasis on language organization at the morpheme and word level is not efficacious with preschool children who show phonological delay and delayed semantic-syntactic development. A model of verbal communication which unites phonetic, phonological, and higher organizational levels and related…

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of lexical choice errors made by native Arabic-speaking learners of English in written compositions indicated that first-language interference is a major variable in lexical choice. Results lend support to the development of problematic word lists to help learners adopt practical strategies for improving…