Presented are activities for students in grades 3-6 which use assorted breads and spreads to represent layers of the earth's crust. It is suggested that in addition to providing good nutrition, this method has helped the children use the processes of science to deduce some basic principles of geology. (KC)

Twenty skills are identified and illustrated by example activities which should help the student receive, organize, and analyze data; manipulate it at a symbolic or model level; and treat it in imaginative ways through purposeful distortion and fantasy. (CL)

The career education staff development effort in the Louisville Middle Schools is examined. Focus areas include: unique needs of the middle school student, training activities, barriers encountered, and factors contributing to the workshops' success. A figure illustrates the staff development plan. (CT)

Presents a teacher's journal entries for poetry classes she conducted for fourth and fifth graders at Anthony Chabot Elementary School in Oakland, California, located in a middle class neighborhood with an ethnic mix of students. Describes two poetry writing ideas: "What Matters" and "100 Words." (PA)

Describes how writing with specifics can transform poetry, helping to create vivid pictures in the reader's mind. Offers three of the author's own poems that illustrate the judicious use of detail. (SR)

Tested the learning effects of a concept-mapping strategy by studying three such approaches (map correction, scaffold fading, and map generation) to determine their effects on students' text comprehension and summarization abilities. Results with 126 fifth graders show that the map correction method enhanced text comprehension and summarization,…

Examines peer affiliations of aggressive children in a sample of 948 students from 4th through 6th grades. The deviant peer group hypothesis was partially supported. Two thirds of aggressive boys and one half of aggressive girls were most likely to be members of nonaggressive groups, whereas popular aggressive boys were most likely to be in…

Examined factorial validity of tasks designed to measure cognitive processing in each of Luria's three functional units. Fourth and fifth graders (N=112) were administered nine experimental tasks chosen or developed according to theoretical components of planning, attention, simultaneous, and successive processes. Obtained general support for…

Patterns of memory dysfunction were determined in 50 middle school learning disabled readers (LD) through a hierarchical cluster analysis. Results were consistent with memory capacity theories of LD and provided external validation for classification of LD readers on psychometric measures according to patterns of memory performance. (Author/DB)

Offers seven annotations of books and journal articles (published between 1992 and 1994) from the ERIC database on the topic of language and literacy in upper elementary grades. (SR)

Finds that fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students were successful in using the electronic speller for correcting and verifying as correct over 85 percent of the words they had targeted as possibly misspelled. (SR)

Describes a supplementary method for teaching equivalent fractions through the use of a multiplication matrix, providing a simple visual and concrete activity that aids learners in understanding this difficult concept. (SR)

When ranking Carnegie Corporation's 8 recommendations in "Turning Points," 34 principals of exemplary middle schools rated ensuring success for all students as most important, followed by creating a community for learning, empowering teachers and administrators, teaching a core of common knowledge, preparing teachers, reengaging…

Technology education is gradually replacing industrial arts. National Science Foundation's 1983 report "Educating Americans for the 21st Century" outlines program to help middle-school students develop skills, such as controlling and using "new" body, moving from concrete to abstract, establishing independence from adults, and…

A collaborative effort among community leaders, schools, parents, and nursing school faculty developed a sex education program for rural fourth- to sixth-graders. A commercial program was revised using the following criteria: cultural sensitivity, appropriate reading level, active and didactic instruction, and a focus on abstinence. (SK)