Reports findings of one study that reanalyzed research data allegedly demonstrating a substantial relationship between social cognitive ability and narrative writing skill, and another that collected original data. Reveals no relationship between social cognitive ability and rated quality of narrative essays. Discusses finding in terms of a…

Describes an outreach program in which college students plan, develop, and present hands-on workshops to fourth-grade students and their parents. Provides an overview of the pedagogical aims of this approach and a sense of the timeline for putting the program together. (CCM)

This study analyzed graphical solutions of 344 students in grades 4 through college who were administered a 40-item assessment of basic fraction concepts. Of particular interest were six problems that required students to complete the whole given a fractional part presented in area contexts and set contexts. Results indicated that fourth graders…

Investigates the development of rhythmic perception in Italian primary school children and its correlation to other subjects. Demonstrates a significant improvement in fourth graders' ability to discriminate duration and rhythms and indicates very few correlations with other types of school learning. Believes that the results emphasize the special…

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between processing load and ability to locate text segments containing intersentence contradictions. It was hypothesized that less able readers fail to exhibit comprehension monitoring skills because most tasks overload their processing capacity. Subjects were 87 fourth and sixth grade students…

Examines fourth and fifth graders' ideas about historical evidence through a year-long qualitative study of two classrooms. Discusses the results, focusing on understanding the reliability of sources, evaluating evidence and reconciling conflicting accounts, and using evidence to reach conclusions. Addresses the implications for instruction. (CMK)

A study investigated whether children and adolescents use commas and the principle of Late Closure to guide sentence parsing decisions as adults do in processing syntactically ambiguous sentences. The study consisted of three experiments, conducted similarly but with different subject groups: 24 university students; 24 fourth-graders; and 19…

Explains Cultural Connections, a model for implementing constructivist, intercultural distance learning partnerships. Highlights include a theoretical framework; social constructivist pedagogy; intercultural communication; telecommunications; Web pages; and examples of a middle school partnership in Texas, a fourth-grade connection between Texas…

Communication in the mathematics classroom is currently viewed as an integral part of mathematics instruction. This paper explores the usefulness of math penpal letters as a means of increasing the quality of written communication in mathematics. The focus of this study is the letter writing exchanges between a class of 4th-grade students (n=28)…

A study investigated effects of a parent volunteer program--a component of the Summer Reading Program of the University of Maryland at College Park--upon children's self-perceptions as readers and their motivation to read. Subjects were 10 students in grades 4 or 6 who were identified as achieving below grade level and who were low motivated…

Predicting that when presented with a general context children and adults would produce different specific inferences, a study examined children's and adults' script representations of a common event and the use of representation in comprehension. In the first phase of the study, 23 fourth grade and 48 college students were asked to generate…

The Sisters in Science Program (SIS), a 2 year intervention, was designed to impact the lives of 4th and 5th grade girls in a variety of ways. The overall goal of the program was to increase girls' attitudes, perceptions, and achievement in science and mathematics. Considered a multi-leveled intervention, SIS sought to create female-friendly…

Describes how a bilingual teacher and a professor collaborated in a bilingual classroom to create culturally relevant opportunities for learning. Examines the work of four fourth-grade students of different backgrounds to show what this culturally relevant learning looked like. Discusses sources of knowledge generation: families, multicultural…

The cognitive determinants of number analogy performance were studied by systematically manipulating the processing demands imposed by the items. To explore sources of developmental differences in analogical reasoning, subjects were included from two age levels, grades 4 and 5 and college. To allow the investigation of individual differences in…

Examines four case study pairings of college student volunteer tutors with fourth-grade at-risk children. Notes that the efforts of these tutors and their students all resulted in significant literacy gains. Describes in detail the social interactions of these dyads and identifies common themes, characteristics, and categories which emerged from…