Reading Improvement Through Art (RITA) program is an interdisciplinary approach to literacy that blends visual art with reading comprehension, evaluated in nine New York City urban high schools. 240 problem readers participating in the pilot program were pre- and post-tested in the Fall 1975 and Spring 1976 semesters. The testing showed the 9th…

Sixteen concept words related to "matter" were described as simple textbook definitions and 16 multiple-choice items were constructed for each concept definition. These materials were used to compare the ability of 1,635 Tasmanian and 826 Indian students to recognize the concept definitions and their attendant verbal labels. (JN)

Identified classroom variables (teacher variables and classroom climate) which are related to changes in high school students' conceptions of the nature of science. Results discussed are based on data collected over a two-year period from 18 biology teachers and their 409 students. Implications for science instruction are addressed. (JN)

Eleven tests of reading comprehension, language skills, and cognitive processes were administered to 20 high school readers with learning disabilities and 20 controls. The variance on nonverbal tests was greater for the group with LD than for the controls; some individuals with learning disabilities performed as well as the controls. (Author/DB)

The ability of 54 learning-disabled high-school students to monitor their comprehension was compared under three prereading conditions: self-questions only, structured overviews and self-questions, and a control condition. Subjects receiving both the overviews and self-questions were best able to detect errors during reading. (Author/DB)

This study investigated the use readers make of visual and verbal illustration to understand and remember what they have read. Specific focus was placed on readers' use of pictures and analogies to understand and remember written directions for a spatial manipulation task. The independent variables measured were type of text, mode of illustration,…

Investigated (1) conceptions 40 African students used in solving floating/sinking problems; (2) nature of these conceptions; (3) kinds of arguments of epistemological commitment they displayed in their responses; and (4) if their conceptions differed from scientific conceptions. (JN)

A study with 18 deaf high school students found that skills that actually contribute to reading proficiency included use of prior text information, prior knowledge, reading speed and consistency, use of active memory for function words and inflections, and correct processing of relative clauses and the passive voice. Instructional implications are…

Students (N=22) enrolled in secondary school biology were evaluated for their abilities to use: combinatorial logic; correlational reasoning; separation and control of variables; exclusion of irrelevant variables; proportional reasoning; and probabilistic reasoning. Each student responded individually to six Piagetian tasks designed to measure…

This study investigated how students processed information obtained by reading a passage related to inertial reference frames. Two groups of 10th-grade students (one group consisting of students identified as potential National Merit Scholars and another consisting of students enrolled in level-I biology) read a science text passage and answered a…

Designed to determine a reader's ability in processing information relationships in written discourse in English, the extended-cloze instrument consists of six reading passages, each with four complete sentences deleted. Students read each passage and select the best of four multiple choice alternative sentences for each deletion. The instrument…

Results of interviews with high school chemistry students (N=14) during equation-solving sessions indicate that those who were able to construct diagrams consistent with notation of their balanced equation possessed good concepts of subscript and the balancing rule. Implications for chemistry teaching are discussed. (DH)

The study of differences between 12 subjects with learning disabilities and 12 without, across 3 grade levels (intermediate, junior high, and senior high) and 2 story grammar tasks, found no developmental differences between disabled and nondisabled groups but did find significant differences in the amount and type of information recalled. (DB)

High school biology teachers (N=18), and one 10th-grade class of each teacher, were given the Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale at the beginning and end of a school year to determine their conceptions of the nature of science. Results (such as students not possessing "adequate" conceptions of science) are reported and discussed. (JN)

This study investigated the effects of analogy-based and conventional lecture-based instructional strategies on the achievement of four classes of high school biology students (N=123). Prior to treatment, students were assessed for cognitive ability and prior knowledge of the analogy vehicle. The analogy-based treatment consisted of teacher…