Illustrates how children constantly solve communication puzzles in the course of language acquisition and offers suggestions for teachers and parents to assist children in their understanding of language. (HTH)

Analyzes the roles of verbal coding skills, processing efficiency, and memory ability in accounting for individual and developmental differences in the reading comprehension of children in grades 3 through 8. Results indicate that skill differences can arise through ability differences at two independent levels--processing speed and memory.…

Results of a 10-item oral language test presented only orally, orally with pictures, and orally with concrete aids replicate earlier research findings showing that bilingual children manipulate language more easily than unilinguals. Unilinguals' errors were due to incomplete development while bilinguals' were caused by that and first-language…

A number of classroom techniques are presented that illustrate the diversity of competencies necessary to reading in a second language, even more complex in their many combinations. It is proposed that evaluation of reading competence is difficult, if not impossible, by anyone but the student. (MSE)

Discusses the theoretical foundation for Ferguson's correlation between speed in detecting syntactic errors in written English and acquisition of the listening comprehension skill. A detailed analysis of Ferguson's procedure is given along with references to other pertinent literature. The original conclusions are questioned. (AMH)

Lev S. Vygotsky's concepts of social, egocentric, and inner speech are explained, and two of Vygotsky's basic arguments are reviewed: (1) that these forms of speech are dialogic; and (2) that cognitive functioning can be explained by its surrounding social foundations. (GDC)

Examines the linguistic awareness of the translation process by analyzing the self-corrections made by native speakers and matching subjects' self-perception of what they had done with what they actually did in order to establish a set of parameters of linguistic awareness. Contains extensive bibliographic references. (PMJ)

Delineates five developmental listening comprehension stages second language learners pass through: (1) streams of sound, with no comprehension; (2) word recognition within the stream; (3) phrase/formula recognition; (4) clause/sentence recognition; and (5) extended speech recognition, or general comprehension. The discussion illustrates the…

Teachers tend to give directions that their pupils can follow correctly. Children are better able to process increasingly complex directions as they get older. (Authors/CJ)

As children move toward learning specified forms of writing, they organize print in their environment and learn generalized communication strategies. Learning to write is developmentally similar to the acquisition of oral language. Ten stages are suggested for understanding the development of children's writing. (JN)

Surveys recent research in language acquisition, emphasizing the views of M. A. K. Halliday. (RL)

Subjects named or categorized a picture preceded sometime earlier by itself or by its verbal label, as well as a word preceded by itself or a pictorial counterpart. Pictures clearly profited more when the task was naming, whereas words profited more when subjects performed a categorization task. (Author/GDC)

Reports that when hearing-impaired children imitated nonsense words containing bilabial consonants, the rank order of correct responses and total choices was "b" (highest), "m," and "p" (lowest). The data are discussed in terms of auditory-visual perceptions of the hearing impaired and the order of the sounds in normal-hearing children. (Author/RL)

In studying the effects of different teaching methods on preschoolers' language abilities it was found that the productive training condition produced more generalized responding on other kinds of tasks. (Editor)