"The Electric Company" was created by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) as an experiment in using television to teach reading skills to children in grades 2-4 who were having difficulty learning to read in school. With more than 500 shows completed and four seasons behind it, the series continues to be an experiment. The methods…

GRADES OR AGES: Grades K-6. SUBJECT MATTER: Science; matter and energy. ORGANIZATION AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE: The guide is divided into the following six units: 1) Composition of Matter, with 27 concepts; 2) Light, with 20 concepts; 3) Heat, with 14 concepts; 4) Sound, with 12 concepts; 5) Electricity and Magnetism, with 17 concepts; and 6)…

A follow-up study of children who began school at age 4 was conducted to examine the influence of three different preschool models (child-initiated, academically-directed, or a "combination" approach) on later school success. These children from an urban school district were studied again in Year 5 as they prepared to leave the primary…

The purpose of this study was threefold. It attempted to develop an attitude scale to measure prejudice in elementary school-aged children. It then compared these children's self perceptions with the perceptions of members of other race-sex groups using the Scale of Children's Attitudes toward Race and Gender. In addition, it investigated…

This paper reports on research with a group of students in grades 3 and 4 who live on isolated grazing homesteads in the Australian desert in western New South Wales. The paper examines an alternative mode of delivery involving the application of satellite-based systems to provide a teaching-learning environment for these students. The trial of a…

This practicum was designed to increase responsibility for completing and handing in homework among students in grades three, four, and five in a mid-Atlantic school district. Of a total of 128 students in these grades, 28 were identified to learn strategies to aid in completing homework. Nine solution strategies were employed: (1) provide…

The Mathematical Sciences Education Board (MSEB) and the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction (USNCMI) took advantage of a unique opportunity to bring educators together. In August 2000, following the Ninth International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME-9) in Makuhari, Japan, MSEB and USNCMI capitalized on the presence of…

Field observation studies involving 121 American and 200 Chinese third- through fifth-grade students, aged 8 to 11 years, examined developmental and cultural patterns in academic risk-taking. Variables assessed included developmental stage, situational factors, curricular emphasis, optimum risk level, cultural background, gender, and industrial…

A study of the effects of gender, race, and participation in the Chapter 1 program on the achievement gap between students in grade 3 (mandated busing year) and grade 4 (after termination of busing) for 434 students in Norfolk (Virginia) indicates declines in achievement test score for both African-American and white students. (SLD)

As part of a larger project aimed at promoting science and literacy for culturally and linguistically diverse elementary students, this study has two objectives: (a) to describe teachers' initial beliefs and practices about inquiry-based science and (b) to examine the impact of the professional development intervention (primarily through…

This study is a follow-up on a previous study of the effects of 2 beginning reading programs implemented in 1st grade. In the previous study, 40 1st-grade students who were matched based on their Concepts About Print Test (Clay, 1979) and Phonological Segmentation Fluency from the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good…

This study examined whether children's psychosocial self-evaluations mediated the relationship between general academic self-concept and self-reported depression. Self-evaluations in three psychosocial domains were assessed: General self-worth, intellectual ability, and social acceptance. Results indicated three significant findings. First, a…

Children from non-English-speaking homes are doubly disadvantaged when learning English in school. They enter school with less prior knowledge of English sounds, word meanings, and sentence structure, and they get little or no reinforcement of their learning outside of the classroom. This article compares the classroom standard practice of…

A project developed processes for improving the reading comprehension of third- and fourth-grade students in two progressive suburban communities in northern Illinois. Analysis of probable cause data revealed that students lacked knowledge of reading strategies and a review of the district's general curriculum and textbooks revealed systematic…

Noting that collaboration can enhance children's ability to solve problems of increasing difficulty, this paper discusses the theory of collaborative talk in the classroom and how it can be applied. The first section of the paper introduces the notion of collaborative talk by describing a classroom setting and offering an excerpt of two children…