Produced in response to a school board's directive to develop a plan for implementing a standardized curriculum in the basic subjects on a district-wide basis, this instructional packet is intended for use by teachers of a course in functional basic English skills for eleventh grade students. The packet contains preparatory sheets, activity…

Produced in response to a school board's directive to develop a plan for implementing a standardized curriculum in the basic subjects on a district-wide basis, this instructional guide is intended for teachers of a course in language arts basic skills for middle school and junior high school students. The guide contains preparatory sheets,…

English as a Second Language (ESL) composition textbooks were compared with freshman composition textbooks through a national survey of U.S. universities. A detailed content analysis of nine ESL and eighteen English composition texts was conducted. A questionnaire was sent to selected universities asking the faculty to answer textbook-related…

A model designed to aid faculty in course development and revision is presented and discussed as it operates at the Community College of Philadelphia. Several guiding principles of instructional development are presented, stressing the importance of a positive approach and the view of instructional development as a mode of communication between…

Activities that promote perceptual motor development and that link language arts experiences to physical education are described in this guide. The 13 activities for students in kindergarten through grade three include playing games that relate movement and cognition, moving to music, describing sensory experiences, and defining words used to…

This paper describes an experiment that was undertaken to examine the usefulness of the cloze test as an objective measure of a native speaker's writing ability. A modified version of the cloze test used by Oller and others to measure integrative language skills in non-native speakers was given to 100 freshman English students. The test…

This occupational skills instructional guide on effective communication is one of twelve making up a curriculum guide on the human aspects of working in organizations. The modules are designed for utilization at various educational levels ranging from high school to adult and continuing education, in either academic or vocational programs. This…

This staff development module is part of one of three groups of career guidance modules developed, field-tested, and revised by a six-state consortium coordinated by the American Institutes for Research. This module is the twevlth in a series on developing a comprehensive career guidance program at the high school level, designed to aid guidance…

A total of 96 Canadian elementary school children (48 "natives" and 48 nonnatives) participated in a study to determine if there were differences in the reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills of native and nonnative children in the same grades in the same school. The subjects were tested for oral and silent reading skills,…

This study explores how children indicate that a new character or object is being introduced into a written text and how they tell their readers that a particular word refers to something which has appeared in the text before. In particular, the study focuses on information represented by noun phrases in written narrative texts. To investigate how…

This discussion of the Basic Skills Improvement Program (BSIP) formulated by the United States Congress strongly urges educators to develop programs that demonstrate the effectiveness of teaching basic skills in a comprehensive curriculum integrating reading, writing, speaking, and mathematics. The major functions of BSIP are explained as…

PHONICS INSTRUCTION IS A BASIC SUBJECT IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM. THE HARVARD-BOSTON SUMMER PROGRAM BEGINS WITH A DIAGNOSTIC TEST TO DETERMINE JUST WHAT SKILLS SHOULD BE TAUGHT. THE PROGRAM IS BASED ON THE CONCEPT THAT PHONICS IS THE SPOKEN WORD, THUS IT IS SUGGESTED THAT A LITERARY APPROACH BE USED IN WHICH THERE ARE A VARIETY OF WRITING…

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, TEACHERS USE INSTRUCTION IN LANGUAGE AS THE BASIS FOR INSTRUCTION IN COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE. FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES OF FRANCIS CHRISTENSEN, THE TEACHERS CONCENTRATE FIRST ON THE WRITING OF SENTENCES, THEN ON WRITING PARAGRAPHS. THE FINAL WRITING AND STUDY OF WHOLE THEMES ILLUSTRATE THAT THE DEVICES WHICH CONTROL…

THIS SOURCEBOOK WAS PREPARED AS A TEACHING SUPPLEMENT FOR USE IN THE LANGUAGE ARTS PROGRAMS OF RURAL ALASKAN SCHOOLS IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES. A WIDE RANGE OF MATERIAL IS INCORPORATED, INCLUDING THE AREAS OF LANGUAGE SKILLS, AVAILABLE TEXTBOOKS AND FILMS, TYPES OF COMPOSITION, AND EXTENSIVE SUGGESTIONS FOR CORRELATED ACTIVITIES IN THE AREAS OF…

Describing the early reader as one who has learned to read informally at home before formal schooling has begun, this paper reviews the literature on two aspects of early reading. The first aspect considered is the home environment of the early reader and the interactions with his or her parents. The second aspect considered is the process by…