Primary education in Russia has failed to adapt to the needs of post-Soviet society, and is still based on rote learning and memorization instead of learning through discovery and learning to use and apply what is learned.

While the idea of teacher performance-pay is increasingly making its way into policy, the evidence on the effectiveness of such programs is both limited and mixed. The central questions in the literature on teacher performance pay to date have been whether teacher performance pay based on test scores can improve student achievement, and whether…

The purpose of this study was to investigate prospective mathematics teachers' knowledge of common conceptions and misconceptions that sixth and seventh grade students had about multiplication of fractions. In addition, prospective teachers' knowledge of the sources of these misconceptions and strategies they knew to overcome these misconceptions…

This study measured retention (after 5 and 10 years) of verbal material recited by a parent during infancy at stages of pre- and postsyllable differentiation. (GO)

The authors concede that thinking strategies are important, but argue that instruction in these strategies may not be warranted. (MK)

The author defends the teaching of thinking strategies. (MK)

A general discussion of thinking strategies is given and researchable questions related to thinking strategies are presented. (MK)

Bangladesh, a poor, densely populated country the size of Wisconsin, typically has elementary classes of 50 students learning by call-and-response techniques. Since 1996, 13,000 teachers from 2,900 primary schools have been trained in multiple ways of teaching and learning. Teachers are determined to personalize learning. (MLH)

Brown and Barclay (1976) trained educable retarded children to use either of two memory search strategies, Anticipation or Rehearsal, involving a self-checking component. Following the training, both their free recall performance and their ability to estimate their readiness for a recall test improved significantly. In the present research, the…

This article presents an eclectic approach to spelling instruction, combining ideas from two basic methods: phonetic and memorization. Teaching procedures, student activities, and materials are suggested. A chart of the most basic reading/spelling generalizations is included. (SJL)

Ten principles to apply in teaching children to memorize basic facts are discussed. (MN)

To produce maximum learning achievement, parents and teachers can take five basic steps: (1) finding a simple approach to mastery learning; (2) improving learning conditions at the beginning of sequential courses; (3) improving the home study environment; (4) helping students develop "automatic" reading skills; and (5) stressing higher mental…

Literacy, accompanied by the freedom to choose what one reads, could work wonders in Haiti. (Author/IR)

A study sought to ascertain the "official" conception of numeracy in Scotland as published in Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI) audit reports. 300 HMI reports on 300 primary schools were examined for references to computational proficiency and understanding of number. Segments signifying proficiency were significantly more numerous than…

Distar (Direct Instructional System for Teaching) was specifically developed to ameliorate the reading problems of inner city children. The program, developed by Bereiter and Englemann, is based on the assumption that disadvantaged children lack certain basic language skills, information and behavioral patterns, which prevent them from mastering…