Discourse and conversational analysis methods were used in a qualitative reconstruction of one aspect of the regularities in the way 61 children "do" personal reference. Of particular interest was the development of two reference forms: minimization--preference for simple (one word) forms, or recipient design--reference forms indicating…

The report summarizes findings on evaluation studies conducted over a 6 year period at the Institute for Research on Learning Disabilities. Major findings are highlighted in the first chapter. Findings are grouped under the following topics: current evaluation practices, reading evaluation, spelling evaluation, written expression evaluation, oral…

This book emphasizes a comprehensive treatment of all areas of the language arts and advocates interrelating the teaching of the language arts and integrating this teaching with the teaching of other areas of the curriculum. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "Language and the Language Arts"; (2) "Teaching the Language Arts"; (3)…

Oral language has primacy both developmentally and by virtue of use for most individuals in our society; however, the development of oral language for many children is left to chance. Although English education journals have resounded with exhortations to teachers about the importance of encouraging children to talk, the recent limited research…

Miscue analysis is a monitoring device that makes it possible to view the manner in which a student is processing a given reading selection; therefore, it is more appropriate than standardized reading tests for measuring the strengths and weaknesses of nontraditional students. Miscue analysis assumes that reading is a language process and that…

The extent to which children's cohesive oral text varied as a function of listener status and the extent to which children could be trained to generate decontextualized oral text was examined in a study of children in kindergarten through second grade. Independent variables were children's age; exposure to a play, discussion, or drawing condition;…

To offer a historical perspective on vocabulary studies, this paper presents summaries, reviews, and critiques of vocabulary studies in chronological order of publication. The only variance from this format are published rebuttals and/or critiques, which are presented immediately following the original studies. The paper is divided into two parts.…

Since there is a lack of studies that reveal school age children's oral competence in story production, a five-year longitudinal descriptive study was undertaken to determine a child's sense of story as revealed by children's oral generation of stories. The specific story elements analyzed were sources of their stories, narrative form, formal…

Intended for young debators, this booklet lists the main events of a debate contest for Japanese college students. The booklet contains transcripts and articles from the debate in which the proposition that the Japanese government should significantly strengthen its policies to protect the Japanese people from foreign nations was debated. The…

A case study was undertaken to examine the influence of one aspect of signed grammar, transparency of reference of some signs, on the acquisition of possessive pronouns in American Sign Language (ASL). The subject was a hearing child of deaf parents who was learning ASL and English. Data were collected in home visits betwen the ages of 1.1 and 3.2…

This paper draws upon a theory of stories that relates particular text structures to particular affective states and then relates the affective states to story intuitions and overall judgments of liking. The first section of the paper outlines the theory as it deals with some important properties of the genre of popular stories in Western…

The development of oral language proficiency as a requirement for bilingual and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teacher certification in New Jersey is chronicled. Efforts made toward the preparation of bilingual and ESL teachers to accommodate the increasing numbers of limited English proficient students in the state are outlined, beginning…

As the United States entered the nineteenth century, it did so under the influence of the Second Great Awakening. This was the second wave of revivalism to sweep the nation, and it originated in the frontier as the Great Western Revival. One pertinent characteristic of the revival was its rhetoric, a rhetoric that was a prime expression of a…

Teaching Spanish while either restricting classroom use of the textbook or ignoring application of the computer is a losing proposition. Withdrawn from the typographic-video world that engages them daily, students are deprived of their most comfortable means of knowledge acquisition. Typography and visual images can be an immeasurable aid in…

Designed to improve students' discussion skills and to promote independent reading, the "Talking about Books" program stresses the improvement of oral language through peer group discussion of books. Like the Junior Great Books program, "Talking about Books" requires that students read selected books independently and then participate in group…