Conversations of nine preschool children were tape recorded as they traveled home from school. Analysis indicated that, overall, the children spoke most often about the here and now. Most references to the past or to school projects occurred during the first five minutes of travel. References to future events occurred more often during the latter…

Analysis of retrospective self-reports about childhood curiosity to see persons in the nude, with heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles, gynephiles, and androphiles, suggests that establishment of erotic sex preference proceeded that of age preference, and a greater proportion of pedophiles than gynephiles or androphiles remembered childhood…

Suggests ways parents can help steer their children toward the field of science, noting the current decrease in the proportion of students in science and engineering. Some of the ideas are to take children to museums, watch science specials on television, and buy toys and tools that teach. (SM)

This paper focuses on book-centered and "non-book" children and the role of the Internet in changing literature and children's reading habits. Highlights include diversity in children's books; differing magazine readership across the continents; the concept of narrative; the problem of book-centered children becoming outsiders in a more…

Three concepts critically important in developing curricula for young children are play, thinking/creativity, and sustained interest. Through play, children explore the world; practice discovered relationships; and establish meanings for concepts, words, ideas, and actions. Teachers should actively focus on the learning potential of play.…

Five-year-old children's activity choices were examined in an early childhood classroom setting designed to foster interactive microcomputer activities. It was hypothesized that engaging and sustaining the children's active involvement with interactive computer experiences would be very difficult, due to their limited academic skills. Further, it…

Well meaning parents and teachers often use children's play for the purposes of literacy and socialization. Yet, these attempts may deny play to children by subordinating play to some other concept. Evidence shows that even when parents play with their very young children they generally play games like shopping, cooking, and eating; whereas when…

A study was conducted to determine the influence on parents of televised warnings about content unsuitable for children and to determine parents' attitudes toward such warnings. Researchers conducted interviews in 422 homes and distributed questionnaires with Likert-type and frequency scale items. While parents recognized and observed the…

To update the findings of a 1971 study, a study seeking to identify the interest patterns and media preferences of fourth and fifth grade children was undertaken in 1978. The responses of 731 children to an interest inventory were subjected to separate factor analytic and analysis of variance procedures. The former were used to cluster…

IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE CONCEPTS OF THE WORLD MUST BE PRESENTED TO YOUNG CHILDREN IN A DYNAMIC AND TANGIBLE WAY. THE WRITER SPEAKS OF THE SCHOOL AS A COMMUNITY OF MEN IN MICROCOSM. THE ACQUISITION OF THE TOOLS OF LEARNING, THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE SYMBOLISM IN OUR CULTURE, THE PROCESSES OF ABSTRACT LEARNING AND MEANING, AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF…

Three preschool children were observed intensively for three years to document children's early television viewing repertoires and programing preferences. Relevant information was obtained from children and parents during biweekly home television viewing sessions. In addition, parents reported in diaries and questionnaires all aspects of their…

The four major purposes of this study were: to examine and describe the in-depth discussions by selected sixth graders of specific books in an attempt to characterize the nature of the responses; to compare four strategies which were employed for initiating the different discussions; to discover the range of personal involvement which sixth…

Recognizing that interest is essential to motivation, this study was designed both to identify and describe the content interest patterns and media preferences (print and television) of middle-grade children and to determine any relationship between these interests and sex, race, or socioeconomic status (SES). An inventory was administered to 250…

The major question of this study is: Does the time context of a TV program affect children's conclusions about the action? If violent or aggressive behavior is viewed on television by children, how will they respond to the action when they know the action takes place in either the past, the present, or the future? Fifth and sixth grade boys viewed…

Interest patterns and media preferences (print and television) of boys and girls in grade four and five were studied by subjecting their responses to an interest inventory to separate factor analytic and analysis of variance procedures. The former procedures were used to cluster degree-of-interest responses into larger groupings that could be…