This article reviews research literature on mental practice and preparation for motor performance and research on the effect of specific mental preparation strategies on skilled performance. Strategies discussed include imagery, self-efficacy statements, attentional focus, preparatory arousal, and relaxation. (Author/CJ)

Reports the results of a study of five-year-olds, which indicate that social relationships are a facilitator of cognitive learning of reading readiness concepts and imaginativeness. Girls in the experimental treatments significantly outperformed the boys. (JD)

Ideas for alumni magazine articles and features are drawn from a variety of sources. Ideas include: scholarships and donor profiles; profiling administrators as "teams"; update on campus neighborhood changes; interviewing campus specialists for practical information; alumni retrospectives; student and alumni perspectives on current…

Points out the sometimes excessive lengths that authors carry the suspension of reality in children's fiction. Advocates a more disciplined imagination, and rejection of untrue or impossible worlds. (HTH)

Discusses the relationship between individuals and societies, equating human experience and development--particularly language development--with fiction making. Notes the implications this outlook has for English teachers. (RL)

Suggests that creating from and sharing dreams is an effective way to develop language skills, individuality, understanding, and rapport in elementary classrooms. Provides an index of dream topics that a group of elementary students reported. (RL)

Discusses three developmental theories of sensorimotor play--Piagetian theory, psychoanalytic theory, and symbolic interaction theory. The relationships among the theories are explored. (CM)

Relevance is a function of how much substantive change a subject introduces into a student's life. This can occur when teachers bring real dynamism into the classroom and inject imagination into teaching. (Author/MLF)

Encouraging children to develop their imagination through using poetic imagery and pantomime widens and enriches their view of the world. (JD)

Creeeak, clank, aieeee! Mix scary sound effects, imagination and fun to brew a spine-tingling tale. (Editor)

Highlights a mathematics program for gifted students (ages 6-8) in Beijing. Different components of the program are described, including using audiovisual geometry, emphasizing the combination of shape and number, stimulating imagination, applying the discovery method, and using the search-out model. Provides sample math problems. (CR)

Raises concerns about whether literacy-enriched play in early childhood settings is really play. Presents a vignette to illustrate how a teacher can model literacy unobtrusively, thereby enhancing literacy, but unwittingly draw children away from meaningful play activities. Differentiates the cognitive processes involved in play and literacy…

Examined 6-, 9-, and 14-year-olds' imagination of the unknown within a storytelling context. Performed phenomenological analysis of the two youngest groups' drawings and the oldest group's story on the "heffalump" theme. Derived eight categories providing an image-analysis of the concept of the "unknown" structured as "something-otherwise," that…

A study examined the cognitive underpinnings of spontaneous and prompted pretend play in 28 children with autism (ages 2-3), 24 children with developmental disorders, and 26 controls (ages 1-3). Children with autism were significantly delayed on pretend play scores. They also had significant deficits in a theory of mind measure. (Contains…

Presents a study questioning how comparative educators use their imaginations to construct new knowledge/understanding on representing educational phenomenon; the genres and forms of representations and how these code choices influenced ways of seeing and thinking; and how the self-reflexive history of imagination is patterned as an intertextual…