Cites reports pointing to a lack of geographical literacy in the United States. Provides a lesson plan on the identification of countries in the Middle East, utilizing repetitive drill and mnemonic devices. Describes this activity as one way of helping students remember place-name geography facts. (RW)

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…

Examined 8- and 10-year olds' understanding of the unique features of and potential relations among mental activities. Found a developing tendency to organize mental activities on the degree to which memory was a component of the activity. Results suggest that a constructivist theory of mind develops in later childhood. (AA)

Seventh- and eighth-grade students with learning disabilities (n=29) who reasoned through factual prose sentences did not recall more information than students who were prompted to try to remember the content after each sentence. However, students trained in thinking skills produced more correct explanations of the information than control…

Normally developing kindergarten children (n=45) were shown written words under 4 conditions representing various size and position relationships between line drawings and orthography. Results showed superior performance for word-only and enhanced-word conditions, over those conditions pairing small or large drawings with written words. Results…

Examines early recollections' value as a personality assessment tool for the elementary school counselor. Suggests guidelines for eliciting and interpreting early memories, and provides a case study. Concludes that early recollections, as a projective technique, enhance the counseling relationship, increase understanding of clients, and clarify…

This study investigated specific processing strengths and weaknesses among 75 readers, ages 6-10, with no oral language deficits. Unsuccessful readers of different ages showed similar information processing patterns, and differed from successful first-grade readers on short-term auditory/working memory and decoding/encoding. Three potential…

Three formats of maplike displays containing historical event and location information were presented to 72 middle school students with learning disabilities (LD). Although recall of locations was significantly greater than recall of event information in all conditions, both mnemonic and elaborative encoding improved recall. (Author/DB)

Examines the role of the neighborhood in books for children and young adults. Discusses community characteristics, historical fiction, "special and scary places," neighborhoods in conflict and harmony, and the neighborhood as a memory base. Presents activities including animated maps, games, murals, small group dramas, and storytelling.…

Outdoor leaders with sound judgment can gather many specific experiences, induce them into a collection of general concepts, store these as memory maps in the mind, later recall the general concepts as needed, and deduce a specific prediction from them. Proposes that evaluative reflection after a judgment is made is the component missing from most…

Investigated the effect of using gender as a functional category in elementary school students' gender stereotyping. Results support the idea that the functional use of gender categories leads to increases in gender stereotyping, particularly among those children with less-advanced classification skills. Advanced classification skills proved to…

Norwegian 6th graders (n=107) either were taught a mnemonic imagery to apply to passages they read or were given no strategy. Mnemonic-imagery students remembered more information. Individual differences in short-term memory and verbal and visual competence did not predict performance in the imagery condition. (SLD)

Discusses the aging process related to physical changes of the human neural structure involved in learning, memory, and reasoning. Presents evidence that indicates such alterations do not necessarily signal the decline in cognitive function. Vignettes provide images of brain structures involved in learning, memory, and reasoning; hippocampal…

Four experiments with 23 second graders in Haifa (Israel) tested the hypothesis that comprehension gains in fast-paced reading are attributable primarily to changes in short-term memory (STM) functioning. Results confirm the hypothesis, providing support for a causal role of STM functioning in text processing. (SLD)

This study of the emotional status of 133 Israeli adolescents and young adults found no significant differences between subjects with dyslexia and controls. Both groups were easily differentiated from psychiatric patients. Subjects with severe deficits in ability to remember details of a text, and with concentration difficulties, exhibited high…