This self-reflective article addresses the experiences two professors encountered when teaching a class about the popular culture of girls and boys to undergraduates at a small liberal arts college. The issues addressed include student reactions, teaching strategies, and the use of an online discussion platform and assessment. The instructors note…

Designed to appeal to children who are entering the world of poetry for the first time, this collection combines the traditional with the contemporary. It could be used equally well at home or in the book corner of a primary classroom. The collection includes poems by such classic children's writers as A. A. Milne, Ogden Nash, Christina Rosetti,…

This book describes a study of childhood experiences with creating personal space in the outdoors, the role these spaces play in children's evolving sense of self, and implications of place-making for education. Chapter 1 describes the author's personal interests that led to the study, the study population, and the way in which each study site was…

Authors looked at ways in which children's interest in and knowledge of 'media culture' provided a basis for classroom learning. (Editor/RK)

Major findings of this study indicate that a relationship exists between children's preference of playground types as measured by length of stay, frequency of visits and personal interviews. Adventure type playgrounds received highest preference followed in order of preference by contemporary and traditional types. (MLB)

Through careful selection of trade books, teachers can promote children's awareness of language. This paper cites numerous trade books that may be used to help children develop appreciation of alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhythm, and rhyme, and it recommends a number of alphabet books, animal stories, and books in which word meanings, interesting…

Foreword to a series: "National Library Week, April 20-26.

This study was designed to investigate male and female interest in babies at middle childhood and adolescence. A total of 64 middle class subjects (half 8- to 9-years-olds, half 14- to 15-year-olds) were observed individually in a 6-minute waiting room situation with an unfamiliar 6- to 10-month-old baby and mother (confederate). While the subject…

Articles in this issue are concerned with reading instruction aimed at preventing reading disability. Topics discussed in the six articles are: classroom practices which aggravate reading problems, a model for individualized reading instruction which allows for several levels of individualization, a data based instructional system for improving…

To determine preschool children's responses to various television program formats, and to discover which would be most effective in holding attention, observers recorded children's reactions to 115 lesson segments viewed in their homes. All behavior responses to elicited and unelicited stimuli were recorded, using a printed form and coding system.…

This second of a series of papers evaluating the Parent/Child Program describes the procedure used to decide whether the nine toys and their accompanying learning episodes are appropriate for use by young children in the Parent/Child context. Parents in four courses (Preliminary and Performance Test Situations) were given instructions on how to…

Using Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance as a model, this study attempted to change the attitude and behavior of children toward well liked toys. The results offer only limited support for the theory. The subjects in the three groups did play a significantly different amount of time in the two play periods. The t-tests indicated it was the…

The classroom use of the key vocabulary, developed by Sylvia Ashton-Warner as a reading approach--rather than as a reading method--which utilizes the child's actual experience, is the major concern of this book. Materials used and tested for a number of years present examples, outlines, and various methods for eliciting children's dramas through…

Notes that there are strong indications that for young children, play and creative work in the arts fill an essential role in the development of an understanding of identity, reversibility, and point of view which are essential to all cognitive growth. (Author/AM)

Evaluates contributions to Russian pedagogical thought of a pioneering essay on the history of childhood and the family in Russia ("Dva Vospitaniia" by Kliuchevskii, written in 1893). Characterizes the Betskoi schools which were based upon the philosophy described by Kliuchevskii as humanistic, but beset by pedagogical problems and…