Students speaking Black English should not be singled out or isolated. Their dialect, like that of others whose English is accented, can contribute to the cultural richness of American classrooms at the same time that the schools are teaching these students to read and write standard English. (Author/MLF)

Points out that the linguistic rules of one's dialect determine what one hears and that items on tests of auditory discrimination may prove difficult for adults and nearly impossible for children. (JM)

This study traces the syntactic interference of the dialect of 176 black children (grades 1-6) living in south-central Los Angeles when they attempt to speak standard English in the school and correlates the amount of interference with certain socioeconomic variables. Syntactical interference items investigated include verb agreement, tense,…

The teacher of black students needs to develop a sensitivity to their rich communicative language styles in order to use the varied styles in the classroom situation. (JH)

The results of a study in which eight black kindergarten children responded to a set of structured tasks designed to elicit linguistic constructions which characterize Black English are presented and discussed in this Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) technical note. Some of the children responded with a high rate of nonstandard realizations;…

Literacy education in Jamaica lacks an officially accepted policy and methodology for teaching creole speakers. This has led to a low literacy level across the population. The distinctive features of Jamaican Creole are highlighted in this article in order to give theoretical and pedagogical insights to literacy teachers. (VM)

This study investigated how much of the Language Instruction Register (variation in language in different social situations) black-vernacular speaking children had acquired by grades one, three, and five. A sentence repetition task was devised which contained selected Language Instruction Register forms having black ghetto vernacular semantic…

The syntactical speech characteristics of black children living in depressed areas of an Eastern city were compared with the eight identified by Baratz, i.e., absence of "s" in the third person singular, zero copula, double negation and "ain't," zero past marker, zero possessive marker, zero plural marker, the substitution of "did" or "can" for…

The use of "have,""got,""have got," and alternate forms was investigated in the speech of Anglo and black grade-school children from lower and middle income neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Techniques were devised to elicit multiple occurrences of the construction, including questions and negatives. One technique used was a convergent communication…

This four-part study, which focused on the relationship between the incidence of Black English and the child's perception that Black English is not preferred speech, identified the phonological characteristics in the dialect speech of black second grade children of low socioeconomic background in New York City public schools. Specifically, the…

In dealing with children's language, this document provides a picture of how language is considered in child development, how children differ in their use of language, and how attitudes about children's language tend to be developed. The document may be used for any inservice program on children's speech (directly observable vocal behaviors),…

Of the various theories about how to treat black dialects, the approach by way of appreciating dialect differences is now in favor. (JH)

This study explored whether statistically significant differences exist between the (1) grammatical structures produced by high, average, and low black, inner-city elementary readers as measured by a language competency task; and (2) whether statistically significant interactions occur between reading achievement levels and the age of the child,…

Inner city teachers who had received special inservice training had significantly different attitudes toward nonstandard black dialects than did other inner city teachers. (Ed.)

An approach to reading instruction utilizing communicative styles from the black community is suggested by the metatheoretical framework outlined in this essay. The social class constructs, language deficit models, case histories, surrealistic rhetoric and lyrical quality of black discourse can be conceptualized within the context of the following…