Six conceptions prevail about the language experience approach (LEA) although research and practical experience have proven them false. (1) "LEA does not teach basic skills." If basic skills are defined as communication competence, LEA teaches basic communication skills as well as the mechanics of communication. (2) "A language experience…

Noting that comprehension studies have stressed the importance of determining the main idea of reading instruction, this paper offers a teaching strategy--the Modified Language Experience Method--that has proven successful in teaching main ideas to secondary school students. The paper first compares the strategy, which begins with the general…

Teachers can encourage students to see reading as meaning-making in a number of ways. Context support methods begin by ensuring that the context is already familiar to students so that word recognition is made easier. Language experience approaches encourage children to learn to read by first reading what they have produced. Real books, as…

The Story Maker is a teaching device that allows children to create stories by choosing options from a set of already-written story segments. This device (1) provides an active language experience that allows children to construct stories easily; (2) demonstrates the consequences of choosing different ways for a story to proceed; (3) avoids the…

The language experience approach to teaching beginning reading uses a child's own language and experiences as the basis for the first reading material or lessons. The approach integrates the language arts skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The steps suggested for a teacher to follow in utilizing this approach are: (1) oral…

Alternatives to traditional testing techniques are proposed for use in the adult English as a second language classroom. It is argued that traditional testing does not place responsibility for achievement on the learner as is appropriate with adult students. The suggested alternative methods are: the language experience approach, sustained silent…

The language experience approach is a reading methodoloy that is highly organized, highly structured, and very systematic, but that allows teachers to teach without texts. It is a multiple, variegated set of activities designed to serve one purpose, namely, the instructional use of pupil's own language. As such, there are five interrelated aspects…

A study examined two contexts in teaching a language experience approach (LEA) reading lesson to kindergarten children. The five children--Black, Hispanic, and White students of varying ability levels--first developed a group story of their own using the Van Allen language experience approach. The teacher recorded the story, and the students wrote…

In Luxembourg, children learn to read in two languages beyond their native Luxemburgish. Beginning in the first grade, children start on German, and in second grade, they begin the study of French and continue to study the two languages intensively throughout the elementary school years. How do elementary school teachers approach such a formidable…

The teaching of poetry can be used as a language experience approach to develop good writing skills in elementary and high school students. This paper discusses the techniques a "poet-in-residence" employed to help students create poems and, indirectly, to teach the function of such writing skills as parts of speech, punctuation, and…

This paper discusses three types of writing experiences, "Writing Roulette,""The Even-Steven Swap Game," and "The Open-Ended Story with a Slant," that can be used in a writing workshop for disabled readers at the secondary level. Each activity emphasizes writing but provides motivation for students to read each other's work. Students will have…

This paper reports on an experiment carried out by the Chinese language program at Oberlin College to use play production as a means of teaching spoken Chinese. The experiment was inspired by the fact that teaching spoken Chinese cannot be solved by traditional classroom methods, particularly at the intermediate level. The lack of texts, the…

Language experience can integrate the curriculum through planned and spontaneous activities, regardless of the student's age or level of skill. The components of an integrated day through language experience are the language activities--listening, speaking, writing, and reading. Opportunities for engaging in language range from formal to informal…

A no-cost, easy to use technique for increasing the reading vocabulary of beginning readers is described in this report. A large number of common words can be elicited from children in a word-association game, to which children respond with words that are highly meaningful to them, and often to their culture. The children then use these words to…

Since, by the time they enter school, children have developed a major portion of their spoken language system by being immersed in language, it seems probable that they could also apply these rules to the orthographic system if they were immersed in reading. Thus, learning to read by reading would allow the general formation of rules that could…