In the context of China's social transformation and educational reform, addressing the problems of fragmented and ineffective learning in traditional teaching modes and enhancing students' academic levels and developing their comprehensive abilities through structured classroom learning have become critical issues in educational reform. The…

Educable retarded (64) and nonretarded (64) subjects (mean age 15 years) heard two stories. After each story, performance was assessed on recall and comprehension. All Ss were randomly assigned to one of four treatments: (1)knowledge (Ss were told concepts critical to processing each story); (2)purpose statements (Ss were guided in organizing…

Procedure of Operationalizing Advance Organizers (POOAO) is a new procedure that can be utilized by researchers to construct effective advance organizers. The procedure is based mainly on the Ausubelian propositions related to advance organizers and on empirical findings of advance organizer research. The eight steps involved in the procedure are…

Suggests classroom activities to prepare students for reading. (DD)

Research indicates that prior knowledge is an exceptionally important determiner of reading comprehension. Many of the prereading strategies currently used to assist reading comprehension do not help teachers identify what students already know about a topic. In an effort to integrate instructional assessment with prereading instruction, the…

The existing literature on reading comprehension instruction is organized and reviewed. The authors question whether explicit training to improve comprehension or monitoring strategies should be offered, since these behaviors improve with maturity and experience and in the absence of any apparent training, but conclude that it is possible that…

Research was conducted concerning the efficacy of advance organizers and structured overviews in aiding student recall. The research was modeled on a process described by J.R. Platt that involves refining experiments and testing alternative hypotheses. Four studies that gradually refined experimental error were conducted on the effects of advance…

Notes that after 20 years of research on advance organizers there is little unequivocal evidence regarding their efficacy and optimal use. Discusses two aspects of this research that are probably responsible for these findings: lack of scientifically objective advance organizer construction and definition and the lack of objective and valid…

After expanding on the definition of advance organizers as proposed by David Ausubel, this paper offers possible reasons for the lack of strong empirical support for the use of the strategy. It then cites examples of the successful use of advance organizers with learners from nursery school through college and in a variety of disciplines. The…

The listening comprehension performance of 64 educable mentally retarded students (mean age 15) and a nonretarded younger sample was assessed when using the following types of advance organizers: knowledge statements; knowledge-plus-purpose statements; control (no information). Among all subjects, comprehension scores were significantly higher in…

Argues that the purpose of daily homework is either to prepare the student for the next lesson or to practice concepts and skills learned in the previous lesson. Suggests that teachers' homework policies must reflect one of these purposes. (SRT)

Structured overviews can help students and teachers to clarify objectives in content reading. (KS)

One hundred thirty-five studies of the facilitative effect of advance organizers on learning and retention were examined. Grade level, subject area studied, organizer presentation mode, and subject ability level were examined in relation to advance organizer effect. Advance organizers were shown to have a small facilitative effect. (Author/GDC)

A series of Danish studies suggests that a great deal of prequestioning before students read may adversely affect students' reading processes. (DD)

This paper presents a detailed description of two information-processing tools, scripted cooperation and the use of knowledge mapping, and their potential application to deaf education. Scripted cooperation is a method for structuring the cooperative learning activities of student pairs. The roles and activities of the participants are scripted.…