This practicum provided training for 50 parents of children receiving clinic services for visual processing disorders and provided information on visual disorders to the children's teachers. The 8-month program involved 13 parent training sessions. These sessions focused on such topics as: current research findings on vision; identification of…

There are a number of issues that must be addressed when delivering courses entirely online, such as designing effective user interfaces, using the visual medium of the World Wide Web effectively, and modifying traditional instructional methods. This paper discusses the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of an online course at…

This paper compares the visual and auditory perceptual systems as bases for communication systems, reviews advances in computer technology, and considers implications for literacy among persons with hearing impairments. It is pointed out that the primary language skills of hearing individuals are developed through speech and language (auditory…

To what extent can photographic readability be formalized for use as a criterion in the evaluation of instructional materials? The purpose of this study was to develop and pilot test a readability index for evaluating photographic illustrations in instructional materials. The index uses an interdisciplinary battery of methods adapted from the…

This assessment guide represents a method for evaluating visual arts achievement by third graders. The artwork presented can be used to determine whether students have met learning objectives and are ready to advance, and also as a diagnostic tool for school improvement. The guide is based on selected sample learning objectives from "State…

A study investigated the development of information processing as it relates to the development of reading skills by studying how good readers and poor readers utilized orthographic information. Subjects, 90 good and poor readers from grades 2, 4, and 6, participated in four 30-minute sessions in which they were required to make a same/different…

Ways in which semantic mapping can be used for general vocabulary development, as a prewriting and prereading activity, as a postreading activity, and as a study skill strategy are presented in this teaching guide. The first two sections provide an introduction to semantic mapping, and outline the three most common uses of semantic mapping as an…

A study examined the use of a body awareness microcomputer program on young children as a predictor of early reading achievement. Subjects, 58 preschool and kindergarten students (prereaders) from a university laboratory school in the southern region of the United States, were asked to work in the microcomputer center in small groups to identify…

This investigation examined the effectiveness of training Japanese and American children with a visual animation/construction or verbal labelling strategy for solving computerized geometric matrices that were correctly or incorrectly completed and varied in number of elements (l to 3) and number of transformations (0 to 2). Subjects were 209…

Focusing on research about children's acquisition of reading and spelling skills, this paper discusses the larger picture of reading acquisition, issues addressed by research, and results of this research. The paper cites numerous studies on the subject, including studies on whether environmental print experiences enable young children to process…

This research was conducted to examine the theoretical basis and findings of an experiment on televised adult instruction. The media coding system element, compositional syntactic placement, was investigated for potential aptitude-treatment interactions on a simple concept learning task. Compositional syntactic placement may be conceptualized as…

The techniques, procedures, and principal findings of 15 different experiments in a research program on interactive communication are summarized in this paper. Among the principal findings reported are that: problems are solved faster in communication modes that have a voice channel than in those that do not have a voice channel, modes of…

Long ago the traditional way for Yakima Indian children to learn was by listening for long hours to the grandparents or other story tellers. In keeping with this auditory tradition, this book teaches pre-reading skills through use of sequenced pictures and stories that children will retell after learning. It helps the teacher assist Indian…

To explore the effectiveness of color coding of visual materials in improving student retention, two sets of black/white and color presentations and evaluative measures were developed and tested on 152 students. Instruction was identical in narrative and visual content, with the only variable the use of color in simple line drawings complementing…

New approaches are needed if educators are to deal successfully with the problem of teaching children to learn to read words well. Interesting questions come to the fore if those who seek solutions to this difficulty regard the reading of words as a subset of the wider problem of reading the class of visual signs in general, which includes (1)…