Provides examples of children's use of oral games and suggests that they are excellent material to establish the needed links between experience, speech, and the written word. (HOD)

Proposes a theory of stress patterns in English phonology based on the role of rhythm, or alternating weak and strong syllables, in determining stress shifts in words. (AM)

Vocal activity in spontaneous speech appears to alternate between regular periods of high and low activity. These cycles may be properties of social systems, internal cognitive rhythms, or physiological rhythms that affect readiness to initiate activity. (Author/RL)

A study of 10 nondialect speakers who stutter, 10 nondialect speakers who do not stutter, and 10 dialect speakers who do not stutter, investigated the effect of speech dialect on listeners' speech naturalness ratings. Speech naturalness ratings were influenced by type of dialect, speech fluency and speaking rate. (Author/CR)

Suggests that, although sharing good books is often reserved for more fluent second language learners, children in English-as-a-Second-Language classes can also benefit. Literature is shown to offer the sound of the language, universality of study, and cultural information. (nine references) (Author/LB)

Explores the acoustic nature of Singapore English. In directly comparable samples of British and Singapore English, two types of acoustic measurements were taken--calculation of a variability index reflecting changes in vowel length over utterances, and measurements reflecting vowel quality. Findings provide acoustic data that support the…

Overviews some of the latest predictable books for emergent readers, this month looking at books that develop a sense of rhythm and books that entice children to play with words. Offers suggestions for using these 12 books in the classroom. (SR)

Discusses the history and importance of storytelling. Provides specific suggestions as to how caregivers, teachers, and parents can help children become life-long learners and readers through the use of storytelling. (NH)

Researchers comparing the signing of deaf early and late learners of Swiss German Sign Language were struck by the difference in the production of signs by two groups of signers. Specifically that the signing of early learners was easier to watch and understand, because it was more rhythmic. Analyses were made of temporal aspects of the production…

Examined characteristics of the acoustic signature of languages in connection with identification of the target language, Korean. In one experiment, listeners were asked to distinguish spoken samples of Korean from competitor languages sharing syllable based rhythm. In another, listeners attempted to distinguish Korean from languages spoken in the…

The world's languages display important differences in their rhythmic organization; most particularly, different languages seem to privilege different phonological units (mora, syllable, or stress foot) as their basic rhythmic unit. There is now considerable evidence that such differences have important consequences for crucial aspects of language…

This book contains over 90 classic poems for children. The collection of poems includes nonsense verse by Lear and Carroll, story poems by Tennyson and Keats, and humorous poems by Belloc and Betjeman. The collection also includes poems by modern poets, such as Charles Causley, Ted Hughes, John Agard, Roger McGough, and Stevie Smith. The…

Research is reported in which subjects were required to perceive sentences in noise. A series of sentences having the same syntax and rhythm was presented. On a final sentence either rhythm alone or rhythm plus syntax were changed. The results stress the importance of rhythm in speech perception. (Author/RM)

The study was designed to identify the patterns, if any, that language impaired children use when employing stress in spontaneous speech. Five preschool boys with a variety of language problems involving pragmatics, syntax, semantics, and/or phonology were identified as subjects. Both had received language therapy within the last 5 years and,…

In this paper William Stafford's varied descriptions and occasional judgments as to what it means to write a poem are gathered by prospecting through his essays, published lectures, and transcribed interviews. The paper describes Stafford's perspective on (1) the powerful language of poetry; (2) finding each poem's unique form; (3) practicing the…