The quality of the verbal environment sets the stage for young children's developing perceptions of themselves and others. This document provides hands-on, practical advice for practitioners to support children's self-perception and coping skills by establishing and maintaining a positive verbal environment. Positive verbal environments enhance…

Discusses Rispoli's data on a model of pronoun case errors in child English, arguing that his claim that overextensions of he and him are antagonistic is inaccurate and his explanation for why her subjects are more frequent than other errors is insufficient. Discusses an account in terms of relative input frequencies, suggesting the fundamental…

Discusses how a child's language development is facilitated through the child's active involvement in a variety of play, talk, and reading time experiences. States that the natural processes of child development encompassing space, movement, vision, audition, and sensory integration form the backdrop for knowing the world and for the evolution of…

Defines the goals of social constructivism as providing a democratic and critical learning experience for students through the building of knowledge about self, school, everyday experience, and society. Reviews specific implications and practical applications of the philosophy. (TB)

Discusses (1) the possibility of children developing meaningful lives, (2) literature as a way of understanding children's lives, and (3) the importance of understanding children's consciousness and how this might be done. (SRT)

Recognizes and praises the research of Margaret Donaldson for what it reveals about children's thinking and highlights three central contributions of her work to the understanding of children's language learning. (HOD)

Presents a historical perspective on child language research, termed "stingy" because of the lack of financial and institutional support. Speaks of the pioneers and present researchers who study child language as men and women of unusual determination and commitment. (HTH)

Finds Bloom and Tinker's description and measurement of active, integrated, and situated children to be a credible scientifically rigorous paradigm for language acquisition research. Highlights their use of the naturalistic, observational method to understand the changing patterns of integration and use of multifaceted abilities in child language…

The role that talk plays in socialization, social development, and possibly cognitive development is described. Research on talk is categorized as follows: studies that consider talk as a tool for investigation; studies that focus on development of grammar or language acquisition; and studies that fall between those extremes. (LB)

Comments on the findings of study of maternal input into children's category knowledge in this monograph. Discusses such aspects of maternal input as the child's role in guiding the parent's language, conceptual development, ways of imparting information about category types, parental speech patterns and how they help children learn optimally, and…

Sets forth educational inferences drawn from a classroom incident involving a first-grade child and her first story writing experience. (FL)

Records the attempts of a very young child to construct his own understanding of what it means to die and of the social impact of death within his own culture. Includes transcripts in which the child uses narrative to frame his first, tentative ideas about death and responds to literature to further extend his understanding. (JD)

Discusses recent research in the development of spelling, the development of spelling ability, and invented spelling and the child's voice. (DF)

South American educator and author Freire discusses qualities important for the teacher, his vision of education and the growth of young children, and the role of language and reading in that vision. (HTH)

Discusses (1) the new perspective on children's capabilities provided by focus on discourse; (2) conversation with an older member of the culture as a context for development; (3) links between linguistic and cognitive development; and (4) children as a member of a culture from infancy onward. Developmental changes and problems in discourse study…