Originating from a study group at the Dartmouth Seminar entitled "How Does a Child Learn English?" these four papers agree that all psychologically normal children come to school already highly proficient in operating a wide range of language structure. The first paper synthesizes some theories regarding language acquisition and…

This study compares oral language production with the written realization of this production for a group of white and a group of Negro second graders attending public schools in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, respectively. Oral language production was assessed using the Gloria and David Oral English test, an individually administered audiovisual…

Productive application of linguistics to the field of reading has made necessary the formulation, revision, and expansion of theories and models of reading to incorporate relationships among stimulus characteristics of writing systems and response components of phonological, morphological, syntactical, lexical, and affective systems. These…

The reading act and the teaching of black children should not be treated as incidental by either white or black educators. The role of teacher-training institutions should be to instruct future teachers in the reading processes, reading readiness stages, basal reading programs, formal and informal reading tests, black dialects, reading approaches,…

It is essential that language arts students in teacher education programs learn more than just facts about language, such as grammar, dialect, and so on. Future teachers must be taught how language, especially the child's language, affects the teacher, the child, and the child's achievement in school. These prospective teachers should learn what…

This study examined the accuracy of teacher-candidates in conducting an informal oral-reading inventory, in English, of a student whose English exhibited Spanish language features. In one test, subjects recorded, analyzed, and scored an inventory; in a second, they analyzed and scored miscues which were already recorded. Subjects had training and…

Sociolinguistic attitudes of 160 high school students, 160 parents or other adults, and 40 high school teachers were studied through questionnaires administered in four South Carolina schools. Results indicated that a majority of students and teachers felt that dialect differences interfere with communication in the classroom, but that eradication…

Presents humanistic behavioral objectives for teaching about semantics, grammar, dialects, lexicography, body language, foreign languages, and the history of English. (DD)

If and when Black English ceases to exist as a language separate from Standard English, it will be because Blacks no longer feel alienated and excluded from mainstream America. (Author/AM)

This article shows what features of Chicano Spanish are seen by typical Latin Americans as being most unlike their own speech. (NCR)

Selected phonological, morphological, and syntactic evidence from two hours of tape recordings of conversations of a four-year-old Native American New Mexican was examined to determine its value in assessing the child's bidialectalism. (Author/SW)

Examines specific issues that are related to teaching a standard dialect. Suggests that the most efficient solution to the problem is to alter teacher preparation to allow reading in the learner's dialect. Discusses the difficulties in effecting such a solution. (RL)

Enormous numbers of Spanish words are used by speakers of Tlaxcalan Nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico. The major function of the language is to support the speakers' self-identification. As speakers feel it more beneficial to improve their Spanish, relexification is contributing to the death of the language. (AMH)