This article seeks to reframe how early childhood educators think about their role in play by answering these questions: What really matters in play? How should we spend our time and energy planning, implementing, and building our expertise around play in early childhood teaching and learning? The answers reside in 5 big ideas from play research…

Through a strong Montessori orientation to the parameters of spoken language, Joen Bettmann makes the case for "materializing" spoken knowledge using the stimulation of real objects and real situations that promote mature discussion around the sensorial aspect of the prepared environment. She lists specific materials in the classroom…

Published research shows that English speakers gain literacy skills up to the 7-year level more effectively when taught using a language experience approach rather than a word reading approach (reading common words plus phonic reading). It is suggested that this is because of the almost unique nature of English phonology, that is the strengthening…

Research using an intensive single-session training to increase use of Socratic (open-ended) questions and to lengthen turn-taking talk with low-income preschoolers showed that immediate posttraining gains were not sustained in classrooms 3 months later. Suggestions are given for trainers and for teachers that can boost teacher ability to…

Among risk factors associated with reading difficulties, poverty and underdeveloped oral language skills can be particularly detrimental to reading success. The City Early Reading First (CERF) project implemented a comprehensive curriculum, professional development, intensive mentoring, and home supports to enhance children's language, literacy,…

The staff of the Individualized Language Arts Diagnosis, Prescription, and Evaluation Project, a funded ESEA Title III program, has developed methods based on a diagnostic-teaching framework designed to analyze students' writing skills for grades 1-12. The program structure also provides teachers with methodology for developing and reinforcing…

The purpose of the 1991-92 Columbus (Ohio) Public Schools Full Day Kindergarten program was to improve the level of achievement of first-grade pupils by providing an additional half-day of kindergarten experience for 952 pupils in selected schools. This extra time allowed the students to participate in activities that were designed to enhance…

This monograph describes the development of a language program for four-year-old disadvantaged boys in Northern Ireland. Various sections of the work describe the steps in devising the program; its objectives, organization, evaluations, and subsequent modifications; the problems affecting implementation, and the efforts made to overcome them; the…

Recommends talking to children to help them develop language skills. Identifies daily routines (mealtime, bath time, dressing, play) as ideal opportunities to engage in parallel talk, describing out loud what the child is seeing, hearing, or thinking during the activity and suggests self-talk as parents perform routine actions around the home.…

Provides a detailed, month-by-month account of a child's accelerated development from birth to age three. The parents and nannies followed a combined socially interactive and cognitively oriented language enrichment program that was developed to have significant, long-term effects on verbal, social, and cognitive competencies from infancy through…

The 1982 American Indian Language Development Institute, sponsored by the Center of Indian Education and Bilingual Education Service Center at Arizona State University, provided training for eight Title VII projects during the summer of 1982. Training included developing an orthography for nine tribal languages, establishing each language as a…

Discusses some of the processes children use in learning words and putting them into intelligible contexts. Describes some of the difficulties children can have when trying to learn new vocabulary. Briefly reports on efforts to use interactive video technology to enable children to access new words. (TW)

It is an undeniable fact that storytelling makes a remarkable contribution to the domains of child development at an early age since it is stated that storytelling is the original form of teaching. Firstly, the contributions and effects of storytelling techniques to the cultural, cognitive, linguistic, socio-emotional and psychological domains of…

Discusses pre-linguistic and linguistic stages of language acquisition that are part of a continuum of receptivity and communication every child experiences in the first 3 years of life. Suggests parents assist language development by being sympathetic to each developmental turning point, providing the right emotional climate for expression, and…

The aim of this paper is to advance understanding of the theoretical basis for the difficulties many children who are deaf or hard of hearing face when learning spoken English grammar. The association between learning syntactical grammar and pre-verbal social interactions is explored and related to the effects of prelingual hearing loss. We…