Groups of retarded and nonretarded children were investigated as they learned three rules underlying problems adapted from the Raven Progressive Matrices Test: rotation, imposition, and subtraction. Results were seen as consistent with theories that emphasize transfer flexibility as one potential source of individual and comparative differences in…

Studies the development of word-retrieval speed and its relationship to reading in 72 average and 11 severely impaired readers in kindergarten through the second grade. (HOD)

Presents study findings which explored the effect of teacher reasoning level and teaching style preference on improvement in student-reasoning ability. Reports that students of concrete operational teachers and of inquiry teachers showed greater gains in reasoning ability than students of formal operational teachers and of expository teachers. (ML)

The nature of arithmetic disabilities in children is discussed first in this review. Then research studies are reported, classified by cognitive and neuropsychological studies and social competency studies. Finally, suggestions for remediation are provided. (MNS)

Describes a study which sought to determine whether differences existed between girls and boys in terms of their concept structure interrelatedness competence (ConSIC) in the areas of physical science, life science, earth sciences, between sciences, within sciences and across all sciences by measuring ConSIC. (ML)

Described is a project in a third grade class in which problem-solving skills are developed through activities with patterns. Activities for growing picture patterns, making number tables, and developing open sentences or formulas are discussed and illustrated. (MNS)

Provides longitudinal observations of young children's behaviors while viewing television in their own homes when the children were actively involved in the process of language acquisition. The observations show an overwhelming and consistent occurrence of language-related behaviors among children and parents in the viewing situation. (Author/SED)

Tested the effectiveness of a program designed to teach children how to conduct and interpret a controlled experiment. Results indicate that the ability to control variables can be taught using the program (which consists of activities related to designing, building, and launching model rockets). (JN)

Investigated changes that occurred in sixth- and seventh-grade teacher and student discourse when teachers endeavored to implement extended teacher wait-time in a sequence of seven lessons related to probabilistic reasoning. Results indicated that teacher wait-time increased from an average of 1.9 to 4.4 seconds during the lesson sequence. (JN)

Argues that for a child to respond to a teacher, whether by reading, talking, writing, constructing a village, or painting a drama backdrop, the child must relate, remember, relearn, monitor, problem-solve, and do all those other mental activities that help humans adapt and create new solutions. (HOD)

Investigates second grade children's ability to understand the use of deictic terms (devices in language that convey information about the communicative situation) in three types of tasks: oral language, written language, and picture selection, and concludes that the difficulty of a word with deictic content depends largely upon the discourse…

Students in experimental group received continuous feedback on learning performance and were allowed to make instructional decisions to determine whether learner control of instruction can be facilitated by directly affecting the student's perception of learning need. Results are discussed in reference to an information-processing approach to the…

Describes a field study of kindergarteners which found 1,006 pupils conserved identity up to 8 months, and 693 pupils conserved identity and equivalence. Follow-up studies showed no relationship between kindergarten conservation abilities and grade 1 math skills, although grade 6 math performance correlated significantly with kindergarten…

Finds that sixth- and eighth-grade students were equally able to participate in discussions of books, answering many questions at interpretive and evaluative levels of thinking. (HOD)

The strong association established between attention skills and school performance has led to increased research in understanding the development of children's attentional processes. How attention develops during early childhood is crucial to understanding partly why children enter school with varying readiness skills. This Snapshot highlights the…