What logic should educators use in choosing words for students to learn to spell? Common sense provides the answer: students should learn to spell the words they use in writing. What these words are has been a subject of concern since the beginning of this century. Dozens of word frequency lists have been developed over the years, based primarily…

This study examined the influence of age, vocabulary knowledge, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES) on the geometric analogy performance of 4- to 6-year-olds. Subjects were 108 children between the ages of 48 and 83 months. Information on the age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status of each subject was obtained prior to data…

Some minimum competency testing programs were created chiefly as a vehicle to improve the quality of basic skills instruction. In these programs, the tests are used to define instructional targets clearly and, thereby, enhance the quality of instruction. Few testing programs have included readability levels in their test specifications. In 1979…

A comparison of four college-level elementary German textbooks reveals significant differences in the numbers of vocabulary entries in each textbook. Further comparison of three of the textbooks with the basic German vocabulary lists provided in "Kontaktschwelle Deutsch als Fremdsprache" and in "Das Zertificat Deutsch als Fremdsprache" reveal in…

The purposes of this study were to compile lists of the words used by kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade children in their oral language and to examine differences in the diversity of the vocabularies among the three grade levels. Twenty-nine kindergarten, 25 first-grade, and 23 second-grade children, all of whom attended schools in…

The literacy training strategy of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire has gained a great deal of recognition over the past 15 years. In Freire's method, the context of the learner's life is carefully studied to find the critical issues in the formulation of dialogue between teacher and learner. A basic vocabulary then is generated to insure power…

This study reveals that children from the age of four to six years are unable to segment meaningful sentences into component words. The experiment investigated three hypotheses of performance on a word-learning task for beginning readers and prereaders. Readers and prereaders were taught five words as oral responses, each word paired with a…

Beginning reading instruction is a challenge that teachers can meet successfully by using imagination, working hard, displaying enthusiasm, and expressing genuine concern for the young children that they teach. This paper offers guidelines for beginning reading teachers who base their programs on traditional basal readers. The guidelines are…

The study investigated the effectiveness of an ecological inventory and screen writing for the acquisition of reading words for secondary-aged moderately mentally handicapped students. The study utilized an ecological inventory model which is an adult-referenced curriculum based on adult tasks and local resources and environments, rather than on…

Based on the Kellian view of constructive alternativism (that the meanings of any idea are not fixed, but vary from individual to individual), this paper describes a technique for exploring school children's conceptions of common physical phenomena to allow science educators (1) to appreciate the alternative conceptions of their students and (2)…

The vocabulary used in textbooks and standardized tests for English as a second language (ESL) is examined to determine how much variation exists. Word lists were compared for six difficulty levels in five frequently-used ESL textbook series (a total of 30 books). Three series of standardized proficiency/placement tests at different levels were…

The relationship of comprehension monitoring to writing was investigated in a multiple-measure, longitudinal study of writing skill development. Subjects were approximately 100 elementary school students who were followed during the first three grades. At the end of first grade, relationships were found between ambiguity detection, reading, and…

Five experiments were carried out to gain insight into foreign language learning as it takes place in the classroom environment, and to create optimal learning conditions for beginning Swedish-speaking learners of English as a Foreign Language. The experiments examined receptive and productive comprehension of English vocabulary in…