H. Marsh and A. Yeung have criticized the conclusions of the present authors with regard to academic self-concept as inconsistent with previous research. It is argued that this inconsistency is because items on the academic self-concept scales are not adequate for answering questions about children's differentiation of perceived ability and…

The effects of dictation and explicit instruction in planning on the composing skills of 42 fifth, sixth, and seventh graders with learning disabilities were studied. The combination of dictation and instruction in advanced planning resulted in more complete and qualitatively better essays than those written by comparison students. (SLD)

The role of executive control in the revising difficulties of 12 fifth and sixth graders with writing and learning problems was studied. Procedural support made revising easier for participating students, but their difficulties were not due solely to difficulties with executive control. Implications for instruction are discussed. (SLD)

The effects of an author, writing in the first person, on adolescents reading history textbooks were studied with six high school sophomores. Data from think-aloud protocols and semi-structured interviews show that students interacted with the "visible" author and engaged in mental conversations. (SLD)

Three experiments, involving 197 undergraduates, studied the information that is included in a topic overview accessed during reading. The presence of topic, but not order, information resulted in faster topic sentence reading times. Information about global passage structure was also encoded from the overview. (SLD)

Whether word-reading processes operated similarly in 72 adult literacy students and 72 elementary school students matched for reading level was studied. The same orthographic and phonological processes appear to govern in both, but correlations between word reading and spelling were weaker for adults. (SLD)

Forty-two below-average readers (ages 7 to 10 years) were given single-word training, phrase training, or no training. Trained children in either condition learned to decode target words quickly and accurately using flashcards, and had better comprehension than untrained children. (SLD)

The hypothesis that gains in reading performance occurring among dyslexic children during individually paced reading are partially attributable to changes in short-term memory processing was tested with 23 elementary school students. Findings provide support for a causal role for short-term memory functioning in text processing. (SLD)

Developmental changes in the expression of superordinates in children's word definitions were studied with 96 elementary school students. Superordination increased significantly and changed qualitatively with age, although across grades children produced more superordinates for nouns than for adjectives or verbs. (SLD)

Social and metacognitive contributors to gender differences in mathematics strategy use by first graders were studied with 58 children. Girls were more likely to use overt strategies, and boys were more likely to use retrieval (from memory) to solve addition and subtraction problems. (SLD)

Motivational influences on help-seeking behavior in mathematics were studied with 203 seventh and eighth graders. Perceived benefits and threats were important influences on avoidance of help-seeking behavior, but only benefits predicted adaptive help seeking. Social competence had an indirect effect on avoidance of help seeking. (SLD)

College students (n=349) completed an argument evaluation test in which they evaluated arguments about real-life situations. Argument quality and strength of prior beliefs were used to create an index of differences that were reliably linked to differences in cognitive ability and actively open-minded thinking. (SLD)

Relationships between pretraining skills, learning, and posttest performance were studied in spatial and verbal tasks for 84 preschool children. The measurement model that fit the data best maintained separate verbal and spatial domains. The best structural model included paths from pretest and learning assessments to posttest performance within…

The Physical Self-Description Questionnaire (PSDQ) was administered to 1,514 elite athletes and nonelite high school students. Physical self-concept was higher for the elite athletes, but gender differences were smaller in this group. Results support the usefulness of the PSDQ and extend understanding of self-concept in school settings. (SLD)

Pairs of genetically unrelated children reared as same-age siblings offer a design for investigating genetic and environmental influences on behavior. Results with 21 pairs support an explanatory model of intelligence that includes genetic factors. Shared environment appeared to have a very small effect on intellectual development. (SLD)