Examines the Test of Language Development-Primary (TOLD-P), an individual test of English language proficiency which has four principal uses: to identify problems in language proficiency: to determine strengths and weaknesses in language skills: to document progress provided by programs; and to serve as a device for research.(NH)

The literature on oral narrative comprehension, memory, and production abilities of language-learning-disabled students is reviewed. The relationship of these abilities to academic success is noted. (Author/DB)

This article is an essay on the importance of attention as a personal trait. Offers a definition of attention, reviews symptoms of inattention, and identifies the categories of objects which typically hold a person's attention. (JDH)

Contrasts the views of teachers and students concerning topic work, finding that teachers see it as more valuable than do children. (FL)

Examines whether age-related differences would be observed between young children and adults for discrimination of synthesized, five-format consonant-vowel syllables that differed in voicing onset time of the initial consonants. (HOD)

Claims that in metrical prose, rhythm can convey sense or express and underline what a writer is saying, and sound can be exploited to add a strong aural element that provides pleasure to the ears over and above the pleasure given by the sense of story. (SRT)

Examined the effect of lateral preference on passage comprehension and short-term memory function for 48 normal fourth-grade males. Lateralized readers recalled more information under auditory than written conditions; bilateral readers showed no preference. Between-group comparisons showed bilateral readers to comprehend significantly more than…

Describes a study which addressed three questions: (1) Do Hawaiian-English children have the same general ability to understand connected discourse as their standard English-speaking peers? (2) Do they have more difficulty understanding standard English than their own dialect? and (3) Can they more easily understand standard English by making…

Results indicate that (1) subjects listening to instructional material while alone comprehend significantly more than those listening as an audience member and (2) a significant relationship exists between the number of strangers present and listening comprehension. This study may have implications for mass lecture courses. (PD)

Describes a study that attempts to define what features of foreigner talk (FT) aid learner comprehension. Features investigated were: (1) a reduced rate of delivery, and (2) features of grammatical FT such as synonymy, hyperonomy, parallel syntactic structures, and paraphrase. Measures showed that the effect of reduced rates of delivery was…

The issue of teachers' interpretion of children's language and ideas is explored through observations of sharing time in a second-grade classroom. Problems associated with teacher evaluation of student competence in classrooms where children come from various ethnic and linguistic backgrounds are discussed. (DF)

Reviews the theories which assert the necessity for prolonged intensive listening without expectations of production for some time in language teaching. Asserts that comprehension and production are indissoluble partners in the two-way process of communicative interaction and that teacher-directed and dominated classrooms are not interactive…

The battle for communication skills has already been won; the task ahead is to get teachers in the trenches to teach them, either in separate units or in their subject areas. Nine references are listed, and a list of resources for implementing instruction in speaking and listening is provided. (Author/DCS)

Five junior high learning disabled students read a passage silently before reading it aloud or listened to the teacher read the passage aloud while following silently before reading aloud. Among results were that the systematic prepractice procedures were related to higher performance levels than the baseline (no prepractice). (Authors/MC)

Offers a rationale and guidelines for modifying the recommendation report to include speaking, listening, and writing assignments. (HTH)