This paper reviews current literature concerning the development of children's comprehension of the processes of natural languages and it recommends a new study approach designed to evaluate the joint effects of lexical and syntactic devices on comprehension. It discusses three main kinds of investigations--studies of the comprehension of…

Problems attributed to dual language learning in early childhood have been exaggerated and may be the result of a failure to control significant research variables. The relationship between a child's acquisition of a language and his ability to think must be better understood for closer investigation of the effects of dual language learning.…

A Language-research experiment designed to examine the linguistic competence of bilingual Italian-American children demonstrates that structures shared by Italian and English are acquired in approximately the same order and at the same rate, and that the sequencing of specific structures reflects linguistic complexity. Structures appearing in both…

The reading instruction experiment described in this report is based on the theory that, if a child learns to talk without formal instruction solely by being exposed to language and if written language is to be considered as an independent system, a child could learn to read at the same age and in the same way as he is learning to talk, solely by…

About 2,200 immigrant children in Sweden were studied by means of tests and teacher questionnaires. The children, representing 36 nationalities, were born outside Sweden and were distributed over the nine grades of the Swedish Comprehensive School. Various functional language skills in Swedish as a second language (L2), nonverbal intelligence and…

This study examined the effects of social class background on children's oral language development. The study focused on children's oral vocabulary knowledge because such knowledge provides a good summary of language skills, is easily measured, and is very consequential for later schooling success. Using a large national data set, the study…

Tested a model of individual differences in the development of emergent literacy. Focused on home environment contributions to children's emerging literacy skills and on processes relating family environment and two domains of emergent literacy (outside-in and inside-out). Found that early connections between home, language, and emergent literacy…

A proposed research project focusing on the role of parents in promoting their children's learning of English as a Second Language is outlined. Specifically, the research would investigate the extent to which parental support and interaction of various kinds will enhance the learning and acquisition of English in low-income Hispanic kindergarten…

Articles presented include: "Introducing the New Literacy" (John Willinsky); "The Emergence of Literacy" (Nigel Hall); "Media Education: The Limits of a Discourse" (David Buckingham); "Extracts from 'Thought and Language' and 'Mind in Society'" (L. S. Vygotsky); "From Communicating to Talking" (Jerome Bruner); "What Does It Mean To Be Bilingual?"…

Papers on a variety of linguistic topics include six papers from a Festschrift and nine others, as follows: "Attitudes Towards English as a Possible Lingua Franca in Switzerland" (Urs Durmuller); "Functional Stability and Structural Levelling of Dialects: The Case of Maastricht" (Anton M. Hagen, Henk Munstermann); "On the…

Focusing on children's developmental use of written language in kindergarten and first grade, this report looks at connections between the social and academic dimensions of classroom life. The first section examines literacy as an aspect of growing up and becoming a member of society. By highlighting the social and academic divisiveness schooling…

Presented is a collection of 14 conference papers on various aspects of child language acquisition. Papers and authors include: "Language and Psychological Development" (Jean Berko Gleason); "Regression in the Phonological Development of Two Children" (Ken M. Bleile, J. Bruce Tomblin); "Children's Acquisition of the…

Papers on child language development include: "Sentence Frame Effects on Children's Category Judgments" (Alison K. Adams); "Color Similarity in Children's Classifications and Extension of Object Labels" (Dare Baldwin); "Situational Properties of Early Verb Meaning" (Pol Cuvelier); "Similarity, Specificity, and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 17 titles deal with the following topics: oral language characteristics of college freshmen; the language development of a modern day "wild child"; children's understanding of relational terms; the relationship of…

This volume contains six essays on both theory and practical learning techniques for second language learning. In "Towards a Synthesization of Teaching Methodologies for TESOL," James W. Ney discusses synthesizing the audio-lingual approach and the cognitive-code theory of language learning. In "Should We Teach Children…