Two studies investigated hearing-impaired students' ability to derive lexical and syntactic information about unknown words embedded in short passages of text. Implications for explaining, and trying to ameliorate, the well-documented vocabulary limitations of hearing-impaired students are discussed. (38 references) (JL)

Examines whether manually coded English (MCE) sign language systems are learnable. Reading achievement and expressive English skills of deaf students educated using only a MCE sign system were examined. Deaf students had expressive English skills comparable to hearing students in respect to syntactical and lexical skills but were deficient in…

This case study deals with language awareness (LA) oriented instruction in the Irish language classroom, based on qualitative-type research conducted in a class of 21 English-medium secondary students studying Irish as a subject. Having outlined the general background to the teaching of Irish in secondary schools, the first section of the paper…

Several states have now implemented policies restricting basic writers' access to four-year universities, and the students most likely to be affected are African American, Latino, and nonnative English speakers. The pressure to speed students' mastery of standard written English, along with the trend toward more explicit instruction in second…

This article reports on the results of a longitudinal investigation of the reading development of a sample of 824 children (406 girls, 418 boys). The sample included 689 native English-speaking (L1) children and 135 English-language learners (ELLs) representing 33 different native languages. In kindergarten and 4th grade, children's word reading,…

This article considers the comprehension of tense-aspect markers remote past BIN and habitual be by 3- to 5-year-old developing African American English (AAE)-speaking children and their Southwest Louisiana Vernacular English (SwLVE)-speaking peers. Overall both groups of children associated BIN with the distant past; however, the AAE-speaking…

Purpose: This study investigated the impact of syntactic complexity and task demands on construction of utterances using picture communication symbols by participants from 3 age groups with no communication disorders. Method: Participants were 30 children (7;0 [years;months] to 8;11), 30 teenagers (12;0 to 13;11), and 30 adults (18 years and…

This study examined whether a younger starting age is advantageous in a situation of minimal exposure to an instructed foreign language ([less than or equal] 4 hours classroom contact per week). Previous theoretical and empirical studies indicated there should be no advantage for an earlier start. Japanese college students who started studying…

The paper reviewed studies in word-level processing skills and related areas, and profiled how the development of L2 word recognition and integration skills would contribute to autonomous "kango" (Chinese originated words or words created from Chinese originated words) vocabulary learning. Despite the fact that the acquisition of a…

The perceived crisis in reading achievement may be misplaced--the real crisis may be what is ignored in the curriculum. People are alarmed at the lack of emphasis being placed on teaching content knowledge in many of today's classrooms. They laugh when Jay Leno takes to the street, interviewing teenagers and young adults who do not have the…

Spanish-speaking (SS) children with language impairment (LI) present with deficits in morphology and verb argument structure. These language areas may be useful for clinical identification of affected children. This study aimed to evaluate the discrimination accuracy of spontaneous language measures with SS preschoolers to tease out what…

In this article I provide evidence that despite frequently cited differences between child first language (L1) and adult second language (L2) speakers in overt behavior (performance) during grammatical development, the nature, source, and limits of implicit knowledge (competence) in native and second language grammars are equivalent (i.e., they…

Background: Narrative may provide a useful way in which to assess the language ability of adolescents with specific language impairment and may be more ecologically valid than standardized tests. However, the language of this age group is seldom studied and, furthermore, the effect of narrative genre has not been explored in detail. Methods &…

Dawnene D. Hassett and Melissa B. Schieble contend that literacy instruction must include attention to the multiple ways in which print and visual images work together. They propose ways to update accepted reading strategies "with visual texts and new literacies in mind." Using examples from picture books and graphic novels, they expand our…

This article describes pedagogic issues in setting objective tests in mechanics using Question Mark Perception, coupled with MathML mathematics mark-up and the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) syntax for producing diagrams. The content of the questions (for a range of question types such as multi-choice, numerical input and variants such as…