Overview of current research on how children learn their native language before school. Implications to aid learning in school are discussed. (DR)

The acquisition of Spanish as a first language was investigated in a study of eight Puerto Rican children ranging in age from 17-39 months. The speech of the four children studied in Puerto Rico was analyzed in detail and compared with that of the four children taped in Boston. The children's speech was taped in natural situations and analyzed in…

First explains what is meant by "metalinguistic awareness" as a special dimension of language experience and its seeming importance in education; then describes a conception of the function of "play" in general and play with language in particular; and asks how educators might encourage play with language in school. (Author/JM)

This is a quarterly report of a project involving the analysis of the language of four Puerto Rican children living in the Boston area who are learning Spanish as a first language. The children, all male, ranged in age from 17 months to 37 months during the period of study. All had some contact with English. The data were transcriptions of…

Children encounter differences in language environments at home and at school; the school's role is discussed in language education. (JB)

Discusses current research in child language to help teachers understand how young children acquire language skills. (DR)

Noting that the question of how to evaluate the effect of an educational program on child language reduces to the question of how to analyze child language, the author discusses ways to measure those functional aspects of child language which may be most sensitive to both environmental interferences and environmental facilitations. (Author/JM)

Explores children's spoken narratives and the quality and purpose of Sharing Time in the classroom. Considers the quality and effects of teacher responses to students' talk. (HTH)

The language a child learns from and attends to is the speech of significant persons in his world, addressed to each other and to him. As the child gradually participates in this social interaction he learns communicative competence, i.e., the nonconscious, tacit knowledge that underlies speech behavior--knowledge of both the language and the…

Metalinguistic awareness is discussed in terms of the new national curriculum in English language education in Great Britain. A chronology is presented of events surrounding national curriculum legislation that prompted controversy in Britain concerning the teaching of the English language. One result of this legislation has been the creation of…

This paper considers language development among children and discusses the influence of the learning environment in the acquisition of language use as distinct from language structure. The results of the five studies reported here suggest that the child is aided by what he is encouraged to say, not simply by what he hears, and that adults seem to…

This publication reviews significant research in 1969 in the field of oral language in early childhood and reading. In general the paper discusses only those areas where these three topics intersect; thus detailed treatment is given only to language in early childhood education and language in relation to reading. Initial comments deal with…

A discussion of language in preschool education reviews research findings on children's language acquisition and its relationship to their general development and examines issues to be considered in making decisions for each community and program. The first section summarizes basic knowledge about preschool language development, facilitating…