The literature on individual differences in cognitive processes that operate at the text level is reviewed. Poor readers display comprehension deficits independent of word-decoding skill, due to deficient syntactic abilities and to more general metacognitive strategies. The general conclusions from this review and from Part One (ED 150 706) are…

Reports long-term effects of intensive instruction in the cue attendance or hypothesis generation on open-exploration behavior of 120 ninth graders. Five dependent measures included: number of observed details; number and quality of hypotheses; and number and diversity of questions. Results suggest long-term benefits. (Author/JN)

The effect of auditory free recall on four lists of monosyllabic word ensembles was studied in 10 learning-disabled and 10 nondisabled first grade boys. (Author/PHR)

Examines four groups of readers: second-language (L2) intermediate; L2 advanced; first-language (L1) Japanese; and L1 English) when they processed and recalled two passages varying in degree of causal coherence. Findings indicate that L1 readers used much of their attention for higher level processes, whereas L2 readers paid more attention to…

Discusses changes occurring in two-, four-, and six-month-old infants' visual attention span, through a series of experiments examining their ability to orient to peripheral visual stimuli. The results obtained were consistent with the hypothesis that infants get faster with age in shifting attention to a spatial location. (AA)

Discussion of problem solving in education focuses on 19 statements about problem solving that have implications for the educational use of computers. Topics discussed include thinking processes; groups and cooperative learning; transferring knowledge to other domains; short term memory and chunking; tutoring; simulations; and programing. (38…

Western and Soviet views of memory-related performance are synthesized. Whether middle childhood-aged students comprehend better with meaning-based (involuntary) strategies due to the importance of semantic focus, and whether adolescent students comprehend better with memory-oriented (voluntary) strategies were studied with 243 students in grades…

Women students ages 35-55 wrote about their experiences in formal education, focusing on being exposed, being different, mother's expectations, being chosen, being included, and understanding the rules. Analysis indicated the centrality of relationships in construction of self-concept as learners and the persistence of these beliefs into…

Results of studies of 238 Australian children of differing socioeconomic status in preschool and at the end of first grade are consistent with the view that socioeconomic status differences in word-level reading achievement are mediated partly through preexisting differences in phonological sensitivity. (SLD)

Two studies of adults between the ages of 18 and 87 were conducted to determine the relations among age, motor speed, perceptual speed and 3 measures of cognitive performance: study time, decision time, and decision accuracy. Results indicated that increased age was associated with lower accuracy as well as with longer study and decision time.…

This paper discusses methods for providing students from diverse home environments with essential educational experiences. It emphasizes the importance of patience in teaching children comprehension and offers guidelines for fostering children's development of comprehension, memory, and evaluative and relational thinking skills. (PB)

Addresses concern that students in North America and Europe do not know place name geography. Discusses the use of mnemonic learning in geography and maintains that it is a positive teaching aid. Illustrates the use of mnemonics in instruction and recommends mnemonics workshops at geography education conferences. (CFR)

Factor analysis performed on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) for 252 subjects (ages 6-16), who were mentally handicapped, slow learners, or learning disabled, identified 3 factors: verbal-conceptual, perceptual-spatial, and distractibility-short-term memory. Findings suggest that the factor example can be used to…

Examines how users interact with text to devise a more effective information retrieval interface. Research in cognitive psychology and information science that relates to the use of metaphors and document categorization is reviewed, and an example of text organization and retrieval by historians is presented. (60 references) (LRW)