This report on the Conference on Navajo Orthography, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 2-3, 1969 constitutes a summary of the discussion and decisions of a meeting which was convened by the Center for Applied Linguistics under contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to agree on an orthography for the Navajo language. The immediate purpose…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effect on first-grade reading achievement of completing a program designed to teach the names of the letters of the alphabet before beginning formal reading instruction. Information was sought on the differential effect of this program on either boys or girls of different levels of…

Each of the 71 lessons in this two-volume course in Tunisian Arabic begins with an initial dialog in Arabic with an English translation. (Arabic appears in phonemic transcription.) Grammar notes explain the points emphasized in the lesson; learning and practice drills follow each dialog. A simplified explanation of the sound system of Tunisian…

The present volume, containing lessons with practice and review exercises, offers a systematic presentation of the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) most widely used as a simplified means of representing the pronunciation of General American English. The transcription symbols presented are those primarily employed by Kenyon and…

The Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.), devised by Sir James Pitman as a simplified alphabet for beginning readers, consists of 44 characters plus a set of rules for standard spellings of English words using these characters. The characters and rules are designed to ensure easy transition from i.t.a. to traditional orthography (T.O.). In September…

This dictionary is a companion to "Naval Terminology," developed by the Defense Language Institute and printed in 1971. Cyrillic script is used for the Russian terminology. Two main sections define naval terms from Russian to English and from English to Russian. A list of abbreviations concludes the text. (RL)

Second-grade pupils who were taught reading in the first grade with the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) were compared with pupils who were taught reading with traditional orthography (TO). Seventy students from two schools in Moline, Illinois, were divided into a control group (using TO) and an experimental group (using i.t.a.) and were matched…

Reports on a study to determine whether students of Chinese read faster when the text is written in characters than when written in Romanization. Results show reading efficiency as determined by speed and errors in translation to be greater with Romanization, while there is more overall accuracy with characters. (CLK)

Three experiments assessed the effect of visual familiarity of words on "same-different" reaction times (RTs) in a simultaneous-matching task. All three studies showed visual familiarity to be responsible for differences in slope over sequence length between words and nonwords. (Editor/RK)

Oral reading speeds for letters, words out of context, and simple text and reading achievement were measured in samples of children and adults. Results are used to discuss the nature and development of a general identification speed variable and an orthographic structure variable. (AA)

Argues that the widespread use of print script in schools should be abandoned. (Editor)

EKTB, a new transliteration scheme for Hebrew based on the historical development of the alphabet, treats Latin characters as graphic variants of Hebrew letters and permits Hebrew to be used with standard equipment while maintaining its traditional writing methodology. (Author/CB)

Traces the development of each of four major handwriting styles currently being taught in the United States (cursive, manuscript, italic, and D'Nealian), describes a method for evaluating the difficulty of forming letters, and concludes that italic letterforms are least difficult to form and most advantageous to teach elementary students. (PGD)

Fifteen college students read passages from a cathode-ray tube as their eye movements were monitored in a study that investigated the size of the visual region within which they used visual information to distinguish among letters as they read. (HOD)

Studies predictions about letter reversals made by Goodnow's "grammar of action." Two samples of right- and left-handed children in nursery school through first grade printed from memory immediately after exposure to each of 41 reversible letters and numbers. Results challenge "grammar of action" proposals about the…