Gloria E. Miller

Children’s Use of Cognitive Strategies, How to Teach Strategies, and What to Do If They Can’t Be Taught

This chapter is about children’s use of strategies. Although the emphasis is on memory, the discussion includes strategies applied in a number of domains. Almost 20 years have passed since Flavell’s seminal studies of children’s strategies (e.g., Keeney, Cannizzo, & Flavell, 1967), and an enormous amount of research has been reported since then. The present chapter does not survey that work exhaustively, but summarizes current thinking about strategic functioning in children. In doing so, we present a revised definition of strategy, discuss a model of strategy functioning that is more precise than some of its historical predecessors, review recent research relevant to that model, compare two differing tactics to strategy instruction and strategy instructional research, as well as consider alternatives to strategy instruction for children who cannot execute cognitive strategies.

The Keyword Method Compared to Alternative Vocabulary-Learning Strategies.

Abstract Imagery and sentence versions of the keyword method of vocabulary learning were contrasted with three nonkeyword verbal-contextual alternatives. Subjects definition learning in the imagery keyword condition was substantially higher than when subjects were presented the vocabulary in sentence contexts, when they generated sentence contexts for the words, when they made decisions about whether the words were used correctly in sentences, or when they were left to their own devices to learn the words. The learning benefits associated with the sentence keyword version were not as dramatic as in the imagery keyword condition. They were more evident when recall of any part of the definition was considered correct than when recall of the entire definition was necessary. These results indicate that the keyword method is a potent alternative to vocabulary-learning techniques that are regarded as effective by curriculum experts in reading.

Mnemonic Versus Nonmnemonic Vocabulary-learning Strategies for Children

Fourth-grade students learned a list of relatively complex English vocabulary words in two experiments. In Experiment 1, pupils used either a mnemonic (“keyword”) contextual or a verbal contextual procedure. In Experiment 2, three other conditions were compared to the keyword context condition. They included a no-strategy control condition and two other contextual variations: (a) an experiential context condition that had been used previously, and (b) a nonkeyword pictorial context condition. In both experiments, the keyword method proved effective for enhancing children’s acquisition of new vocabulary words. Moreover, in the second experiment, neither of the two nonkeyword contextual variations improved students’ performance.

The Keyword Method in the Classroom: How To Remember the States and Their Capitals

the classroom, critics complain. The present study confronted the practitioners lament. The learning task here came directly from an elementary-school social studies curriculum that requires students to learn and remember the capital cities of the USA. This task was linked to a technique that has proven extremely effective in a number of investigations. The technique, the keyword method, was developed by Richard Atkinson (1) for learning foreign language vocabulary. The components of the keyword method are not new. Indeed, they have long been part and parcel of the memory experts bag of tricks (2). These components have even been submitted to scientific scrutiny (3). Atkinsons formalization of the keyword method, however, stimulated renewed interest in memory techniques. Our own research program has focussed on elementary-school childrens success with the method (4, 5, 6). In the present study, the basic components of the keyword method were adapted to learning the names of state capitals. The original version of the keyword method (for learning foreign language vocabulary) is a two-step process. First, the learner must form a stable association be-

Effects of Logo and CAI on Black First Graders' Achievement, Reflectivity, and Self-Esteem.

This article addresses the issue of how successfully minority students learning styles could be matched with computer instruction and the concomitant effects on their achievement, reflectivity, and self-esteem. 36 first-grade children were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: Logo, CAI, or a no-exposure control group. Children worked in pairs in the computer groups, receiving biweekly, 30-min sessions for 10 weeks with 2 female Caucasian instructors who used a mediated teaching approach. 2 significant race × condition interactions resulted: (1) Logo minority students outscored Logo majority students on a standardized test of math achievement, and (2) black students in the CAI condition scored lower on a measure of self-reflectivity than either black or white students in the other 2 conditions. It is suggested that the effects of interactive computer programming be examined from the perspective that learning style is mediated through social and cultural contexts and that minority access to computer programming be encouraged.

Learning Logo: The social context of cognition

ABSTRACT This paper presents research on a theoretical approach to Logo as a programming language that creates a context for learning in which the process by which children learn and develop, using computers, is of greater interest than the products, or outcomes, of learning. Concerned with the cultural context of Logo learning and principles upon which it is based, the first section reviews the developmental and cognitive theories of Papert, Donaldson, Cole, and Sternberg and Suben. Section two offers the theoretical premise of a reference model for learning. Logo based on research in anthropology, psychology, and sociolinguistics. Section three discusses the components of this model in relation to empirical data from a research project on the relationship between Logo programming and young childrens self-monitoring and comprehension skills. Finally, the fourth section briefly summarizes the discussion and suggests areas for further research, including the questions of what cognitive prerequisites are needed to program successfully at different age levels, and the policy implications of providing children with such training. Eight reference notes, thirty-two references, two tables, and five figures complete the document. (a)

More on How (and How Not) to Remember the States and Their Capitals.

University of Wisconsin-Madison This is a postscript to a study that was recently reported in this Journal (Levin et al. 1980). In that study, we described some mnemonic (memory-enhancing) materials that we had developed to teach children the capitals of the United States. We also provided some data, based on controlled experimentation, to substantiate the claim that our materials work. In comparison with fourth and fifth graders who were given an equivalent amount of time to learn states and capitals however they wished, students who were taught according to our procedures remembered substantially more. At about the same time that we had

Effects of Elaborative Interrogation on Young Learners' Recall of Facts.

Elementary school children and preschoolers were instructed to use an elaboration strategy, elaborative interrogation, which involves responding to why questions. The response requires learners to search their own knowledge to try to make novel facts more meaningful. In each of 6 studies, students were presented novel facts that were consistent with the types of facts they might encounter when learning from texts (e. g., facts about animal behaviors, fictional characters, or Canadian provinces). Elementary students (grades 4-8) demonstrated much higher recall for these facts when they were instructed to use elaborative interrogation to generate their own elaborations of facts rather than studying experimenter-provided elaborations or repeating the facts. Preschoolers (ages 2-6) performance was also higher, although benefits were more modest at this age. The successful implementation of elaborative interrogation was related to learners knowledge base, so that children with more expansive and developed knowledge bases demonstrated greater learning gains than their less knowledgeable peers. We discuss dependencies among strategies, learning, and knowledge base as critical in determining applications of elaborative interrogation in classrooms.