This report is one of a regular series on the status and progress of speech research. Manuscript topics are categories and context in the perception of isolated steady-state vowels; tongue position in rounded and unrounded front vowel pairs; the reading behavior of dyslexics: is there a distinctive pattern?; articulatory units: segments or…

Strategies for the development of comprehension during the beginning reading stages are discussed in this paper. Among the topics dealt with are relationships between developmental stages of speech production and reading comprehension; ways of creating a reading climate that promotes experiences with literature; specific techniques for using…

Researchers tested 136 third through sixth graders with the reading subtests of the "Iowa Test of Basic Skills," reading tests constructed from appropriate graded reading materials, and an oral cloze test constructed from a short story whose language resembled the oral language of the children. They computed correlations (within each grade level)…

Information about the Riverside Instructional Support System (RISS)--a program designed to help elementary and middle school teachers and principals monitor basic skills in reading, language, and mathematics--is provided in this handbook. The first part of the handbook identifies the components of RISS, including primary, intermediate, and middle…

The intent of this study was to determine the extent to which preschool children's speech to self, their private speech, was differentiated from their social speech. Ten randomly chosen preschool children, six boys and four girls with a median age of 56 months, were observed in conditions supportive of oral communication (free play), and in…

This review of research with children aged two to six on their reading, writing, and oral language development speaks of five roots of a tree of literate life that require nourishment in the soil of a written language environment. The roots discussed are the development of print awareness in situational contexts, the development of print awareness…

The approximately 500 entries in this third edition of an annotated bibliography were drawn from the professional literature relating to linguistics, psycholinguistics, and reading. Entries are arranged ln the following categories: (1) beginning reading; (2) comprehension, semantics, and meaning; (3) curriculum; (4) language differences such as…

The oral English program of a parochial girls' school in Australia is described in this paper. Included in the description are the schedule of classes; the qualifications of the teaching staff; and the teaching philosophy, which is based on the concepts that students absorb more during classes than the manifest lesson content and that the greater…

This speech communication curriculum guide is designed to provide a comprehensive oral language curriculum, to suggest ways for integrating oral activities into other curriculum areas, and to stimulate ideas for using oral language in a holistic rather than a fragmentary learning environment. Following an introductory chapter on "creating the…

This paper presents background information on the development of the folk oral tradition of black American literature. It then examines seven types of black literature that are basically oral: black folk tales, black folk sermons, black ballads, black American spirituals, black nonreligious or secular songs, black American blues, and Afro-American…

Discusses ways in which talk during writing and group discussion can help children's writing, including (1) helping teachers learn to listen, (2) teaching children to elaborate and clarify, (3) giving children experience with an audience and reasons for writing, (4) helping children gather ideas and assistance, and (5) teaching children to be…

Spanish-speaking children of Mexican descent living in California were tested on the acquisition of 18 Spanish consonants. The 120 subjects (aged 3 to 5:7 years) were equally divided into eight age groups, and the median ages (50%) and upper age limits (90%) of customary production of each consonant were determined. (Author/JDD)

Describes the study of learning strategies employed by successful (defined in terms of oral communicative abilities) Chinese learners of English. These strategies are compared to those of less successful learners and those of other population types from other studies. The test of oral communicative abilities is described. A strategies…

Describes processes of facilitation involved in exolingual conversation (interactions between persons who are dynamically adjusting their respective linguistic performances) between foreign language learners and native speakers, concluding that such behavior is dynamic and creative, and incapable of being described and defined within predetermined…

Describes an anthropological and ethnographic study of writing and the shaping of consciousness in a junior high school, focusing on narrative and performative modes of literacy. Shows how Black and Puerto Rican students struggle with their writing in search of a voice that can express their lived experience in a partially hostile world. (RDN)