This digest reviews children's writing development from socio-cultural, generative, and developmental perspectives. The digest's first section deals with oral language, art, and children's early writing, noting that children use their drawing and talk to support their early exploration and use of print. The second section examines how, in addition…

A case study of a prelingually hearing impaired boy with bilateral severe to profound sensory neural hearing loss is presented. Separate analyses of spoken and signed language were made indicating that signs had become vehicles for attaching meaning to sounds. (Author/CL)

Reviews research dealing with language acquisition to show that there are developmental trends in the acquisition of syntax. (FL)

Examines children's progression in the use of humor in language from taking folktales seriously, to using humor for shock, to using humor to alter social environments. (HTH)

Describes a technique that can be used to help students become better listeners. (FL)

Argues that the standards for formulating comprehension questions do not take into account the differences between written and spoken language. Introduces mutuality-enhancing devices as a way to improve oral comprehension questioning. (FL)

Concludes that the dramatic play context requires children to convey meaning through explicit oral language in order to introduce and sustain play episodes. (FL)

Reports on a study that analyzed the oral language skills of four-year-old children in day care centers as they described a picture and told a story from pictures in a wordless picture book. (HOD)

Presents five principles for restructuring classroom activities to obtain a maximum amount of oral language. Claims that by expanding children's oral language, their semantic and syntactic cuing systems to print will also be strengthened. (FL)

Contends that language names "Hindi" and "Urdu" denote two styles of same language in spoken mode, resulting in duplication of personnel and resources in Britain in language maintenance programs. Survey data show little consensus regarding what constitutes each language when spoken and that nationality and religion are…

Kindergartners and second graders evaluated the communicative clarity of brief oral instructions under three conditions: unambiguous, no closure, and closure. Results suggest that the growth of children's knowledge about communication includes the developing awareness that an ambiguous message is intrinsically unclear and remains a poor message…

Seeks to determine (1) whether 11- and 13-month-old infants directed their eye fixations to the referent of an object word said by the mother, and (2) whether there was a developmental shift in responding to object words at these two ages. Controls were set for response bias, stimulus preference, and maternal cuing. (Author/RH)

Illustrates use of the vocabulary-in-context and the question-and-answer exercises to enhance reading and understanding of literary texts for advanced high school second language classes. Suggests these exercises prepare students to progress from written exercises to the teacher's oral presentations to classroom discussions. (Author/BK)

Suggests that the new communicative techniques for teaching English for special purposes to school children is mistaking ends for means. Both old manipulative methods and new communicative methods are needed. (BK)

Discusses the dependency relation between oral language and reading in bilingual children. Based on a review of literature, proposes a model of monolingual versus bilingual reading and presents the results of an experiment designed to test the model on Chinese speaking students. (Author/GC)