Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

The Raven Progressive Matrices (RPM) were administered to groups of approximately 15 to 25 (for a total of 174) special class, educable mentally retarded Negro or white students, 5 1/2 to 10 1/2 years of age from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds to determine whether individual or group training with learning potential procedure was more effective in improving RPM performance. A training booklet containing test items such as pattern completion and analogy problems was used by each S in two training sessions. Training criteria included strategies to assure child comprehension of task requirements, initial demonstration of task requirements, task requirement concretization in motoric performances (child drew item completing pattern before selecting alternative solutions), and verbal response of child on method of arriving at a solution. Results indicated that both the individually trained and group trained groups demonstrated higher mean increase than the control group; that pretest score, age, SES, race, and training condition were significantly related to posttest scores; that older students, males, or white children received higher posttest scores than younger students, females, or Negroes; that SES was not a significant predictor of performance following training; and that middle class students in special classes had physical involvements not clinically evident in low SES students. (MC)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert