Different conceptions of literacy and its relationship with oral communication are examined, and a new approach that separates literacy and orality rather than representing them on a continuum is criticized. The methodological and theoretical assumptions underlying the work of proponents of the new approach are questioned, including: (1) a narrow…

This report discusses issues having a major impact on "Study Talk," the Queensland component of an Australian language development project. After first outlining the procedures and organizational structures used to set up and conduct "Study Talk," the report briefly describes methods used to evaluate project operations and…

This annotated bibliography contains references to articles and books that provide teachers with specific techniques to use in class to develop their students' oral proficiency. The items cited can be obtained from any good college or university library. Most of the publications have appeared since 1970, and the works cited pertain directly to the…

Discovering pleasure in words should begin at a young age. But the discovery can continue among college students if oral communication courses offer parallels to the art and music appreciation courses which are part of most collegiate curricula. Some class activities which can enlarge appreciation of oral language are: (1) students may be assigned…

A study was conducted to describe and compare the oral responses of three adolescents to two short stories and two textbook selections and to identify their general expectations for reading and responding to fiction and exposition. Three tenth grade girls were interviewed about their family lives, interests, preferences for and experiences with…

Examined in a longitudinal study of children were correspondences and correlations between early language development on the one hand, and the manipulation of objects and play development on the other. There were developmental correspondences between the onset of five language landmarks (the emergence of first word, referential word, demonstrative…

The influence of graphic expression activities on kindergarten children's oral language expression was investigated. It was hypothesized that, regardless of the sex, race, or socioeconomic status (SES) of the subjects, children provided with an opportunity to express themselves graphically would talk more about a prior experience than children who…

Unproven beliefs about the process of reading and its instruction and about the effects of maturation and social structure on learning have obscured the question of what children know about how to read. An alternate conceptualization proposes that to learn to read children must obtain experience in three reading contexts: the use of print and its…

Creative dramatics can be used to teach young children a variety of communication skills. Noisy stories help children to learn and make sounds and later can be used for dramatization purposes. Narrative pantomimes can teach children word order, sensory awareness, and nonverbal communication. Phrases, pictures, and props help stimulate imagination,…

A study investigated the relationship between cognitive style and coherence in discourse. The primary hypothesis was that coherence would vary bimodally by cognitive style classification. Forty-four freshman composition students from three west coast colleges completed the Culture Fair Intelligence Test, the Group Embedded Figures Test, and the…

Twenty-two interviews were conducted with the owner, managers, employees, suppliers, customers, and competitors of an auto dealership employing 91 people in order to examine the oral traditions of that company. The interviews provided data on management styles, dynamics of the managers' interaction, general language usage, paralanguage, favorable…

This study examined the relationship between the oral language fluency of different socioeconomic status (SES) children entering first grade and their success in learning to read, as measured at the end of the school year. Complete data were obtained from 27 upper, 24 middle, and 23 lower SES level students. Oral language samples were recorded in…

This report reviews evidence that there are differences between oral and written English that lead to differences in the skills and knowledge necessary to comprehend them. Three categories of differences are considered in an attempt to derive specific, testable hypotheses: differences in the physical nature of speech and writing, differences in…

Sound-meaning correspondences produced by an infant were studied under conditions of early rampant homonymy (i.e., production by a very young child of a small set of noncontrastive surface forms or phonetic sequences to refer to objects/events that on the basis of adult standards require the production of numerous contrasting surface forms). The…

The relationship between speech and print is essentially asymmetrical and changes as the reading ability of the child improves. For the child who has succeeded at decoding, the asymmetry implies that commonalities between speech and print are more important than their differences. Three hypothetical observation points illustrate the similarity…