This study addressed predictors of the development of word problem solving (WPS) across the intermediate grades. At beginning of 3rd grade, 4 cohorts of students (N = 261) were measured on computation, language, nonverbal reasoning skills, and attentive behavior and were assessed 4 times from beginning of 3rd through end of 5th grade on 2 measures…

The study investigated the hypothesis that differences in performance between 19 poor and 19 good readers in the fourth grade on a rote memory task could be eliminated if both groups were induced to process the material to be remembered in the same manner. (Author/SBH)

Two experiments compared the effectiveness of two separate mnemonic devices for learning the states and their capitals--one a complex key word system using substitute words for each syllable, the other a simple key word device interacting key words from the state and capital names in an illustration. In the first experiment, 88 fourth and fifth…

The study examined the effects of questions on learning among 90 intermediate level educable mentally retarded children. Four types of learning were identified as relevant remembering, incidental remembering, relevant inferring, and incidental inferring. Results indicated that question position was an important variable in influencing the learning…

Concludes that using a reading plan sheet and prompting cards helped fourth grade students increase their literal recall. (FL)

The effectiveness of three strategy training methods was compared with 15 learning disabled (LD) children of two age groups (9 to 10 and 11 to 12 years old) and 15 nonLD children in the same age group. The methods (practice, in which the Ss were to find the best way to remember; specific strategy method, in which the Ss used a specific cumulative…

A study investigated the role of visual imagery in the comprehension and retention of prose. Subjects were 48 fifth grade students who orally read a story and then completed three comprehension tasks directly related to the story: a retelling, an oral reading cloze test, and a multiple choice question test comprised of items demonstrated to be…

Two experiments with 42 second graders, 55 fourth graders, and 36 fifth graders investigated previous findings of a lack of strategic advantage for expert children dealing with information in their area of expertise. Results from using an expert-novice paradigm suggest that expert children's task advantage is mediated primarily by nonstrategic…

Two studies with 33 reading-disabled and 31 non-reading-disabled second through fourth graders indicate that young disabled readers may not be able to hold phonemic information in their memories long enough to make adequate discrimination of phonological information within syllables. (SLD)

Whether tasks requiring the use of explicit, rather than implicit, forms of memory are sensitive to developmental and individual differences was studied using 15 non-disabled and 15 disabled third graders and 15 non-disabled and 15 disabled sixth graders. Learning disability status and grade level factors significantly affected memory performance.…

Effects of task demands, age, and skill level on memory and metamemory performance were examined for 62 average and 66 low-achieving learning-disabled children. Memory improved with age and skill level, and strategic metamemory revealed age and skill-level differences, but taxonomic metamemory revealed age differences in the average group only.…