This paper describes a demonstration of a totally integrated discovery procedure to present sentence-combining practice. This practice makes students aware not only of the complex structures but of the usage and style related to each structure. Guidelines for the execution of the practice include: (1) the use of a sequence of questions by the…

In comparing research results and current textbook practices regarding the acquisition of relative clauses in a second language, it was found that there is a discrepancy between the approaches presented by textbooks and those taken by learners. A pedagogical approach was developed and tested which closely reflects what learners do. The results of…

This document traces the history of sentence combining, from Ney's study in 1966 and Mellon's study in 1969 to recent research conducted by Ney and supported by the Research Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English. Studies by O'Hare (1973), Ney (1975), Combs (1975), Perron (1974), Green (1972), Hunt and O'Donnell (1969), Miller…

Examined whether instruction on a single structure (the relative clause, the appositive, and the infinitive nominal) would alter frequency of use or global syntactic complexity and whether this instruction lasted beyond the immediate posttest. (HOD)

Theory and research indicated that sentence-combining exercises (SCE's) might be effective for improving the writing of learning disabled (LD) pupils. Seven college seniors in special education were trained to implement SCE's naturalistically in tutoring 13 LD pupils in grades 1-6 over a 10 week period, with a control group of 8 seniors tutoring…

This progress report describes a Swedish project which is seeking to develop and test materials for writing practice. Experimental materials focus on the sentence, giving students practice in the formation of more advanced constructions. Emphasis in the control program is on a variety of types of written composition (e.g., narratives,…

This book presents the final report on a study into the effects of grammar instruction upon aspects of the writing of nine-year-old students. After an introductory chapter, the second chapter expounds the theoretical background to the study. The third chapter of the book introduces the experimental programs, the dependent variables, and the…

Indicates that sentence combining and kernel identification training enabled sixth-grade students to comprehend longer, syntactically more complex sentences than control group students and to retain this ability over a six-week period. (HOD)

In order to account for the ways in which combined and decombined sentences work, and to determine why some texts are perceived as being well-written and others are perceived as poor and ineffective, 11 texts were selected for distribution to students for ranking, all on the same topic--the Civil War. Overall, students ranked Bruce Catton's "Grant…

Two studies were conducted to test Francis Christensen's theory of generative rhetoric, which maintains that students should be taught the types of sentences that they infrequently use, especially ones with nonrestrictive phrasal modifiers (participial phrases and appositives) as a way to approach invention. The first study examined the principles…

Methods for teaching students to recognize and manipulate structures of cohesion in reading materials are discussed. Teaching students to connect text involves a strategy that combines reading and writing in student- and teacher-directed activities. An example illustrates how the strategy can be applied with specific course content, a ninth-grade…

In order to study the complexity of sentence combining in college students, 32 students from five basic composition courses were asked to perform three writing tasks at three distinct times during the eight-week instructional period. Each student was asked to rewrite a passage of kernel sentences, to write a composition in the argumentative mode,…

The effect on reading comprehension of manipulating the degree of sentence combining in a passage was assessed for college students and eighth graders. It was found that lower readability level material, as measured by common readability formulas, does not facilitate comprehension for either group, and may actually impede it. (Author/MSE)

The difference model of reading disability was used to generate three research hypotheses for testing the relationship between language development (syntactic maturity) and reading achievement at the secondary school level. This model assumes that reading difficulties are attributable to differences or mismatches between the reader's response…

The effects of sentence combining instruction on student writing skills (punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and syntactic maturity) and reading achievement were studied in eight-, nine-, ten-, and eleven-year-old children. The experimental group, which received instruction in sentence combining, consisted of 20 students from each age group.…