Discusses the "Plain English" movement in relation to legal and bureaucratic documents and, especially, courtroom proceedings. Points out ways that language can be manipulated in order to enhance the powerlessness of participants in court litigation. (GC)

Reviews results of 55 experiments comparing learning from illustrated text and learning from text alone. Research in closely related fields--nonrepresentational pictures (maps, diagrams, graphic organizers), learner-produced drawings, mental imagery, and oral prose--is also examined, and guidelines for practice are offered. A 160-item reference…

Sets forth five principles designed to make teacher-written directions easier for students who are poor readers to follow. (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)

General American Symbols, speech and phonic symbols adapted from the Northampton symbols, are presented as a simplified system for teaching reading and speech to deaf children. Ways to use symbols for indicating features of speech production are suggested. (Author)

Examines basic properties of selected orthographies of various languages and suggests that they play a crucial role in transferring reading ability across languages, especially if the language systems are quite different. (FL)

Discusses the Greek contribution to the alphabet and the development of written communication. Contrasts oral and written traditions and the impact of each. (JMF)

Examines the problem of attempting to simplify official texts, with examples from the Netherlands' government. (AM)

Argues that it is important to consider just what the written language requires of learners so that educators may understand reading and writing disabilities and find appropriate methods of remediation. To do so, a theory of written language must be developed that regards the alphabetic systems as just one particular development among several that…

Originally part of a symposium on educational media for the deaf. Describes a system for synchronization of continuous speech with printed text. Explains the function of a glossynograph, which combines speech and printed text in accordance with synchronization information supplied by synchronization programs. Identifies synchronization routines.…

Reports on a study that examined patterns and interrelationships in the development of print awareness over the preschool years with results indicating that preschool children do not acquire such skills and concepts in a fixed order. (MKM)

Describes the use of oral traditional stories to teach sentence cohesion to students of English as a Foreign Language. Oral stories, when written, resemble the pupils' own work. By turning the former into a cohesive narrative, students can improve on their own stories. Temporal cohesion of the stories facilitates this practice. (PJM)

Analyzes in detail the expressions used by 39 grade school children explaining--in writing--the rules of a ball game. The analysis focuses on the linguistic strategies employed to define the actors and the actions of the game and establishes correlations between these strategies and the sociocultural background of the writers. (MES)