The extent to which pictorial presentation would facilitate the comprehension of text-like passages among two populations of fourth-grade students was investigated. Subjects were 64 students each in high-socioeconomic status (SES) white and low-SES black groups. Simple passages amenable to pictorial presentation were read over a programed tape to…

The instructional process has four major components: stimulation, orientation, transformation, and instrumental activity. Concerning stimulation, the instructor should highlight either the novelty or the complexity of the learning materials. Varying such factors as teaching style and mode of presentation, duration of instruction, and the learner's…

Bilingual education programs for Mexican-American preschool and elementary grade pupils almost invariably include some type of instruction in English as a second language (ESL). Usual ESL Programs for young Spanish-speaking children are found to emphasize pronunciation drill (minimal-a pair drills: pit-bit, choose-shoes). An alternative approach…

This paper discusses a pilot program for a writing course taught by four teachers at Drexel University. One of the primary assumptions was that a course in writing was also one in language. The object of the course was to ask the students to become conscious of themselves as learners and writers and to attempt to discover the function of language…

The relative effectiveness of three types of elaboration (sentences, semantic paragraphs, and syntactic paragraphs) on paired associate learning in 75 educable mentally retarded Ss was tested under list lengths of eight, 12, 16 and 24 pairs. For all lists except the eight pair list, the elaborators were found to be equally and highly effective as…

Elementary school (kindergarten through sixth grade) deaf children were exposed to varied thinking activities based on J. Piaget's principle of action rooted intelligence to determine if thinking might be successfully encouraged in the classroom through activities which were not highly dependent on verbal performance. Each class of approximately…

A program of experimental research has established a relationship between associative reaction time (RT--the time between the presentation of a verbal unit and the first association produced) and performance in verbal learning. Initial studies established that the RT value of verbal units used as response terms has a significant facilitative…

Educable mentally retarded students were taught a verbal mediation learning strategy to determine if their performance pattern would correspond to learning potential designations derived with nonverbal materials. In comparisons of regular and special class groups using a picture paired-associates learning task, special class high-scorers performed…

FACTOR ANALYSIS WAS CONDUCTED ON SEVERAL COGNITIVE ABILITIES IN AN EFFORT TO RELATE THESE ABILITIES TO TASKS OF CONCEPT ATTAINMENT AND INFORMATION PROCESSING. THE ABILITIES UNDER CONSIDERATION WERE DESCRIBED AS GENERAL REASONING, VERBAL COMPREHENSION, INDUCTION, DEDUCTION, SPATIAL SCANNING, PERCEPTUAL SPEED, ROTE MEMORY, AND SPAN MEMORY. ABILITY…

The effects of visual, and verbal/visual, preorganizers and postorganizers on the learning of unfamiliar information were evaluated in an experimental study involving 153 community college students. Pre- and postorganizers were used in connection with a 20-minute lesson on the theory of communication. A 25-item, multiple-choice criterion test was…

Reviews recent experimental and theoretical analyses of the relationship between level of processing and retention, and reports on two studies which tested predictions about the effects of orienting activities on retention. (AM)

In experiments where hypnotized subjects learned one word list while happy or sad, retention proved to be surprisingly independent of the congruence of learning and testing moods. Learning mood provided a helpful retrieval cue and differentiating context only where subjects learned two word lists, one while happy, one while sad. (EJS)

In six experiments subjects saw and pronounced, either aloud or silently, seven-item lists made from vocabularies of phonologically identical items. These materials were used to test the predictions of a precategorical and a postcategorical hypotheses for the modality effect in immediate memory. (Author/SW)

The value of verbal labeling is shown by a study of fourth-grade, eighth-grade, and college students who were shown pictures accompanied by short verbal descriptions. Verbal descriptions increased correct recognitions and rejections of unrelated distractors, while increasing false recognition of related distractors. Results were consistent for all…