Previous studies found inconsistent results about the factor structure of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), with one study finding a two-factor structure and the other, a three-factor solution. This study investigated those inconsistencies and provided further information about the TOEFL factor structure. It was hypothesized that…

A study investigated the contributions of phonemic knowledge, prior knowledge, and listening comprehension to the reading comprehension of elementary age children. Three theoretical perspectives were followed aiming to specify developmental characteristics of these variables to reading comprehension: (1) contributions of prior knowledge should…

Noting that listening is a very large part of school learning and one of the primary means of interpersonal communication, this pamphlet presents guidelines and suggestions for parents to help their children develop listening and communication skills. Guidelines in the pamphlet are: be interested and attentive, encourage talking, listen patiently,…

These facilitator's skill packets comprise eight separate packets on beginning social skills: (1) listening; (2) starting a conversation; (3) having a conversation; (4) asking a question; (5) saying "thank you"; (6) introducing oneself; (7) introducing other people; and (8) giving a compliment. Each packet contains the following…

A field experiment tested the effects of mediation, message difficulty and gender of message presenter on children's attention to messages. Seventy-seven children, ages 6 weeks to 5 years participated in the study. Children were observed as they watched messages delivered by a person either in real life or on television. Results indicated that…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of high versus low teacher affect and active versus passive student activities during music listening on high school students' attending behavior. Ninth-, 10th-, 11th-, and 12th-grade general music students (N=26) from two different high schools participated in four short listening lessons.…

An approach to teaching grammar through the use of speaking and listening activities is presented in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): Why practice the language simply by completing worksheets or exercises in the grammar book? There are various ways to teach language through speaking and listening exercises. These are several…

Story length and plausibility were varied to see whether these factors significantly affect children's ability to monitor their comprehension. A total of 19 third graders and 25 sixth graders were individually read four stories in a counterbalanced order. Each story had one of the following sets of characteristics: long, low plausibility; short,…

The manner in which story reading time is enacted by a specific mother and child was investigated. Data were tape recorded story reading sessions between a mother and her three-year-old son over a nine-month period. Forty sessions were recorded from which six were selected for analysis. Analysis centered on how stories were presented to the child,…

Results of a verbal sound and meaning discrimination test to check the hypothesis of Alajouanine et al.--that two types of paraphasics can be distinguished, phonemic and semantic--are discussed. The former are impaired in tests of auditory language discrimination, the latter show regression of the semantic values apparent in their linguistic…

Considered is the role of active listening in establishing rapport between special education teachers and parents. (CL)

In an experiment in which preschool children were asked questions such as "Which box is taller than it is fat?" the results were interpreted to mean that the linguistic strategy of attending to the first clause is more resistant to change than the preference for simply choosing the largest object. (Author/RM)

An investigation of how Mandarin-speaking children aged three to eight interpret sentences involving the universal quantifier "mei" ("every") and the quantificational adverbs "dou" ("all") and "quan" ("all") focused on how and when the child acquires adult interpretations of the…

There is growing evidence that the best way to prepare students to cope with authentic oral and written texts they will encounter in actual situations is to introduce such texts into the classroom as early as possible. The selection of texts appropriate for beginning students involves examination of the texts themselves and consideration of the…

Designed to help children with auditory perceptual problems from fourth through sixth grade, the manual contains essays and exercises to develop listening skills, auditory memory, vocabulary, and imagination. The first section contains instructions to the teacher and the essays which are at three levels of difficulty and intended to be read to the…