The paper reviews a panel presentation on the essential components, policies, and strategies of a system for effectively moving emotionally disturbed (ED) students into least restrictive educational environments and maintaining them there. The first two parts of the session focused on a system for partially mainstreaming center school (seventh and…

Three commonly used informal reading inventories were examined to determine the extent to which their comprehension test questions were passage independent, and could be answered correctly without reading the passages on which they were based. Fourth graders were given the questions orally without access to the passages. The percentage of…

To help school districts comply with basic skills legislation, the California State Department of Education developed sample writing exercises and scoring guides. The exercises were modeled after Kinneavy's three categories of discourse: expressive--writer oriented; explanatory--subject oriented; and persuasive--audience oriented. The minimum…

The entire educable mentally retarded (EMR) population of three middle and two elementary schools in Indiana were subjects for this interdisciplinary study that addressed the problem of determining what media techniques influence the attention of mildly handicapped learners toward relevant information and away from irrelevant information in…

In this study, the effect of a passage organizer (topic sentence) on the ability to identify main ideas was tested. The second purpose of this study was to determine whether main idea comprehension is affected by the type of main idea question asked. Thirty third- and thirty fourth-grade children selected on a random basis from a semi-rural…

Recent literature on motivation has documented that perceptions of self-competence and motivational orientations for learning are interrelated. This study focuses specifically on childrens perceptions of their scholastic abilities, how these perceptions develop and how they relate to intrinsic motivation for learning. The rationale for this study…

This study examines the functioning of an instrument for measuring elementary school students' motivation to learn about technology. The theoretical framework of the study is based on expectancy-value theory, which focuses on cognitive factors in determining achievement behaviors. Participants were 129 sixth grade students. A questionnaire was…

Motivation and affect have mostly been studied separately, but both research and practical experience suggest that they are reciprocal features of learning experiences and should be studied together. The present research examines the relationships among cognition, motivation and affect in fifth- and sixth-grade children during mathematics classes…

Although positive effects of children playing video games have been found, recent research suggests that exposure to violent video games may lead to an increase in aggressive behavior. This study investigated the effects of playing violent versus nonviolent video games on the interpretation of ambiguous provocation situations. Participants were 52…

Spelling is only beneficial when it is connected to reading and writing. Upper elementary and middle grade students have a tremendous need to be heard, and teachers should focus on spelling for the power it holds in communication--people spell to communicate more effectively in writing. To teach spelling separate and apart from writing and reading…

Developed for fifth graders studying United States history, this lesson addresses the following National Council for the Social Studies thematic strands: Time, Continuity, and Change; People, Places, and Environments; Individual Development and Identity; Individuals, Groups, and Institutions; Power, Authority, and Governance; Production,…

In the primary school classrooms, students spend almost three terms (20-25 hours) doing project work in groups of 4-5. In order for any learning task to be conducted effectively, the students need to know how to work collaboratively in their groups, and teachers need to find out how their students perceive one another while working in their…

This quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the effects of cognitive strategy instruction on fifth-grade students reading comprehension and comprehension of words encountered during reading. Eight intact fifth-grade classes of approximately 34 students each were randomly assigned to treatment groups (clarifying, questioning, combined…

This study documented the learning outcomes of preservice teachers who participated in a service-learning program for professional development on understanding the academic and social needs of students attending urban schools in a low-income northern California community. Eight preservice teachers participated for periods from 1 to 2 years.…

This study considered the possibility that different formats of objective test questions might differentially favor males or females and that males and females might respond differently to objective questions aimed at assessing abilities at different levels of Bloom's cognitive domain. Class tests were constructed on recently taught topics, with…