The study investigated changes in frequency of language used by six Down's syndrome children (six to seven years old) as they interacted with nonretarded peers within a normal school playground setting. As a group, Ss demonstrated a positive relationship between percentage of time engaged in interaction and increasing frequency on language use in…

Two studies were conducted to test the view that the early reading difficulties experienced by boys result from a "difference" in the way they use language, not their "deficit" in language ability. The first study replicated previous findings that young boys outperform young girls in receptive language ability although they perform less well in…

The connections among language learning, language education, and children's wordplay are explored in this book. Each chapter examines some aspect of the interrelations between wordplay activities and the goals of language education. The book is divided into three sections, with the first section exploring wordplay and language learning in the…

Observations of children's responses to picture books in three first-to-fourth-grade classrooms over a two-year period helped to form a descriptive framework for children's responses to picture books. Field notes, transcripts, and other data revealed that when children talked about picture books, they used the lexicon of the expert. They seemed…

This pamphlet is the third in a series of ten stemming from the view that language is central to learning, that teachers can gain insights into their work and into learning by examining the language of the classroom, and that current language theory can be the means to such insights. Specifically, the pamphlet presents ideas drawn from a five-year…