THE DILEMMA OF ERROR AND ACCURACY: AN EXPLORATION

This paper reports on the research on error and accuracy within the realms of constructivism, reading, and writing, and describes an exploratory study of teacher perceptions of approaches to addressing error and accuracy in literacy instruction. Findings demonstrate that teachers who self-reported that they were developing constructivist approaches to classroom instructional practices had contradictory beliefs about dealing with reading and writing errors. There were also contradictory beliefs about addressing reading and writing errors with more- and less-able readers and writers. The teachers were solid in their conviction that students' inaccurate constructions of knowledge should be corrected through inquiry, but were unable to provide examples of instances in which they had done so.     

LEVELS OF CATEGORIZATION AND SIGHT WORD ACQUISITION

Prereading first graders were trained in a group of six sight words drawn from superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels of categorization as well as from a list of frequency control words. After teaching the selected to the students following an interference task, the students were posttested for immediate recall of the previously learned words. They were also tested for recall after a forty‐eight hour delay. Results of the posttesting indicate that the level of categorization from which a word is drawn affects its learnability as a sight word. Students demonstrated that basic level words were easier to learn and recall, regardless of their frequencies.     

Context and goodness in a focusing task

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - In a focusing task, people respond positively to one stimulus and negatively to all other stimuli that occur. The task has been called focusing in...