The implementation of a three-year nongraded electives program in high school English and social studies achieved particular success in providing: a close correlation between English and social studies; incentive produced by age differential within classrooms; and a phase system" which allowed students to select their own ability levels. (Authors)

Explains how a guided independent reading program became popular with junior high school students. (SW)

Explains how elementary, high school, and college students communicated silently via the chalkboard. (SW)

Studies comparing the reading, mathematics, and language arts achievement of retained students with the achievement of promoted students are analyzed, using meta-analysis. Overall, research indicates that retained students fall behind the first year of retention and spend the rest of their academic careers in a vain attempt to catch up. (PP)

Argues that students must be encouraged to discover their personal reactions to literature rather than to parrot the teacher's response. (MM)

A school functions as a stress-reduction agency when it: (1) provides students with information and skills they will need to solve threatening problems they will meet in life and (2) creates an environment that allows staff to feel they are helping students. Physical reactions involved in stress are discussed. (PP)

Describes a method of improving teacher performance by making the instructor more aware of the consequences of his/her teaching. The system uses a Pet microcomputer with student response pads and an interface box to gather and summarize student reactions during ongoing instruction for comparison with a tape of the presentation. (JJD)

Apparently positive behaviors, such as praise, help-giving and pity, may indicate low estimation of ability to the student, and blame, relative neglect, and anger may be perceived by the recipient as high estimations of ability. These behaviors influence recipient self-perception and determine expectations, affective reactions and performance.…

Results of a study show that increasing the amount of time teachers allow for students to answer questions produces a number of positive results, including (1) increases in the length of student response, (2) increases in the number of unsolicited responses, and (3) improvement in student-to-student interaction. (FL)

Through stories, children become aware of their culture and make sense of their world. Past stories came from books; now they come from television. To develop a theory of children's literature, knowledge about children, about their books, and about reading must be placed in a new theoretical pattern. (PP)

Describes the reaction of seven learning disabled and mildly emotionally disturbed children to reading and discussion of fairy tales. Compared to a control group, the children exposed to fairy tales did show progress. No increase in negative reactions and behaviors was noted. Discusses limitations to the study. (JAC)

The two studies reported explored the feasibility of computer assisted composition in helping school-age children handle high-level aspects of the composing process. The results are discussed, and lines for future investigation of computer assisted writing programs for the novice are suggested. Eleven references and two additional sources are…

Discusses difficulties physics students face in understanding physics formulas and equations as a result of placing too much emphasis on the mathematical formulation. Examples are cited to show that use of equations in physics should not be looked upon as primarily a mathematical exercise. (HM)

The use of the dialogue for the exposition of ideas and as a possible solution to the problem of student essays is advocated. When writing a dialogue, a student will evaluate, analyze, compare, and discuss. Some sample dialogues are provided. (MLW)

Provides results of a comparative study of differences between Israeli (N=628) and U.S. (N=302) students in their perceptions of science classroom behavior. Dependent variables were a role-specific self-concept score and rank orders of behavior statement items, and independent variables were country of student and grade level. (CS)