This document consists of the premier issue of an annual international journal on the acquisition and teaching of English as a Second Language (ESL). Its six articles and their contributors are as follows: "Adapting and Applying Levinson's Concept of the 'Dispreferred Second' to the Review of the ESL Materials" (Lawrence F. Bouton);…

A longitudinal study examined the contributions of early language ability, home characteristics, and emerging knowledge about literacy to children's later decoding and comprehension ability. The study followed 127 children from the beginning of kindergarten to the end of grade 3 (when 83 were left). Subjects attended schools in a small, rural,…

A program was designed to improve the reading skills of the second grade at-risk students in a suburban K-6 elementary school located northwest of Chicago, Illinois. The second grade at-risk students could not read fluently at the conclusion of the academic school year, and consequently did not exhibit strong reading comprehension skills. A…

This booklet (one of a series of 10 booklets in a reading project to benefit Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky) contains five stories especially written for kindergarten children by educators. The stories are about: the importance of using a seatbelt; a child's first experience of a hospital; a visit to an emergency room; a…

This booklet (one of a series of 10 booklets in a reading project to benefit Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky) contains nine stories especially written for first graders by educators. The stories are about: illness and accidents; accident prevention; children's reactions to hospital stays; the first day of school; a death in the…

This booklet (one of a series of 10 booklets in a reading project to benefit Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky) contains 10 stories especially written for second graders by educators. The stories are about: illness and accidents; accident prevention; children's reactions to hospital stays; the death of a pet; a child's view of…

This booklet (one of a series of 10 booklets in a reading project to benefit Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky) contains 10 stories especially written for third graders by educators. The stories are about: various kinds of disabilities; accidents and accident prevention; childhood illnesses; children's reactions to hospital stays;…

An evaluation of Manitoba's French immersion programs at the levels of grades 3, 6, and 9 focused on program effectiveness in teaching listening comprehension and speech skills. The results for grade 6 are presented here. The first section describes the framework of the immersion curriculum and the listening and oral skills targeted in it. The…

How two students with the same number-correct score, calculated by dramatically different patterns of responses, can achieve the same ability estimate is demonstrated. The present study investigated the incidence of person misfit to the model in a nationally standardized test of achievement devised using the Rasch item response theory model. It…

The role that reading achievement tests play in the education of limited-English-proficient children makes it important to understand the relationship between these children's reading test performance and their literacy development. A study employed both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to identify factors that influenced the English…

A study examined whether junior high remedial reading students could be trained to use a prewriting schema development strategy called "story impressions" to develop schema and engage the reader in active reading of the text in order to improve comprehension of narrative material. Subjects were four classes of seventh, eighth, and ninth…

This instructional guide for Alberta's (Canada) secondary school program in French second language instruction presents instructional plans and describes specific classroom techniques and activities for listening comprehension and oral production. Section 1 outlines the overall objectives and structure of the program. Section 2 addresses the…

Assessors of literature learning have long been concerned with the issue of difficulty and the fundamental contradictions in the term "examination of literary understanding." An alternate view of literature is that although texts are finally indeterminate, a group of them has been set aside by communities as forming a part of the…

A study investigated whether group interaction in completing cloze passages resulted in better completion than individual work. An earlier analysis of cloze procedure was replicated with 41 community college students of English as a Second Language (ESL). The population was randomly divided into two samples. Each sample completed two cloze…

Designed for teachers of students in grades K-6, the guide presents a reading and literature continuum which covers the basic reading skills, as well as the essential elements of oral and written expression. Arranged by grade level, a major description and rationale are provided for each identified skill area. Following the introduction is a brief…