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This report describes one part of the Classroom Practices Study, focusing on systematic observations of gifted and talented students in 46 third and fourth grade classrooms. The observations were designed to determine if and how teachers meet the needs of gifted and talented students in regular classroom settings. The Classroom Practices Record (CPR) instrument was developed to document the types of differentiated instruction that these students receive through modifications in curricular activities, materials, and teacher-student verbal interactions. Descriptive statistics and chi-square procedures were used to analyze the CPR data. Results indicated that little differentiation in the instructional and curricular practices, including grouping arrangements and verbal interactions, was provided for gifted and talented students in regular classrooms. Across 5 subject areas and 92 observation days, gifted students received instruction in homogeneous groups only 21 percent of the time, and the target gifted and talented or high ability students experienced no instructional or curricular differentiation in 84 percent of the instructional activities in which they participated. The observation manual used in the study is appended, as are a list of observers, a training exercise for conducting observations, and an observation coding guide. (Contains 76 references.) (Author/DB)

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