It remains an open question whether second language (L2) learners can process linguistic properties at the syntax-discourse interface. This study examines this issue in the context of the L2 processing of Korean dative sentences under different information structure requirements. Given that discourse constraints associated with information…

Purpose: This work describes community-based participatory research (CBPR) to support language and literacy development with Pre-K and kindergarten African American boys. Method: The aim and goals of the project were designed using the CBPR model. Interventionists were trained with researcher-designed videos. Interventionist fidelity to training…

This article explores aspects of early language and literacy that may predict later literacy development. It explores a range of assessment procedures used for oral language, vocabulary, sentence structure and phonology and early reading and writing. The article then describes a small-scale study which highlights the disconnections between the…

The value of teaching children to look objectively at language as they make the transition from reality-bound sentences to linguistically correct sentences is examined. (HTH)

Although research studies have found young children to be aware of patterns in language, this innate power is not being encouraged in them during their elementary school years. If they are to gain control of structure in their writing and to utilize vocabulary gained through reading experiences, then a carefully planned program for syntax study in…

Approximately 480 deaf students (age 10 to 19 years) and 60 hearing students (age 8 to 10 years) were asked to judge the grammaticality of sentences containing auxiliary verbs, of sentences where the verb had been deleted, and of sentences in which the verb tense was not marked. (Author)

This research concerns the distinction between processes in sentence comprehension and those in sentence memory. Comprehension was monitored by timing subjects while they decided whether a sentence is true or false. The memory process was tapped by examining subject's incidental memory for the sentences they previously verified. The verification…

Four hundred and twenty-seven deaf students (age 10 to 19 years) and 60 hearing children (age 8 to 10 years) judged the grammaticality of sample sentences which contained infinitival or gerundive complements. (Author/SBH)

A study of 65 seventh grade students indicates that existing readability formulas should be used in combination with measures of syntactic complexity to assess levels of passage difficulty for students who appear to have difficulty in reading comprehension. (JD)

Nouns are generally recalled and recognized better in memory tasks, although several theoretical positions and a variety of empirical tasks indicate the importance of verbs to sentences. To try to resolve this paradox, several experiments were designed to explore the efficiency of various sentence elements as cues in recognition memory. Subjects…

A study was undertaken to determine how much knowledge children have of grammatical systems before they evidence the systems in their spontaneous speech in a productive way. A child aged about two and a half years was examined over several months through elicited imitation causing him to repeat a model sentence immediately after the researcher.…

This paper discusses the subject of fragments as they appear in the writing of college freshmen. It examines the conditions under which certain syntactic constructions are identified as fragments and the reasons for designating some of these fragments as nonpenalty and others as penalty types. The fragment is viewed here as a syntactic…

If in reading a sentence a reader finds something unfamiliar in lexical meaning or grammatical structures, the meaning of the written material may be ambiguous to him. Sometimes the context will help to clarify the meaning of an unfamiliar element, but often it won't. Understanding what is read involves not only the process of reasoning, but also…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of varying the semantic content of active and passive sentences along a dimension of "personalness" on the comprehension of those sentences by preschool age children. The study focuses on a current linguistic controversy dealing with the relative adequacy of syntax-based and…

The first section of this paper discusses recent writing research and the basic elements of language development. The second section describes a program which used a sentence-combining method as an activity-based experience for language development. A six-month study involved all fourth graders at Powell School in Mountain View, California. The…