Research in the area of language skill attrition encompasses such areas as first-language loss, second-language loss, dying languages, and effects of age or disease on language loss. Research has so far focused on maintenance of language skills and interventions to stop language skill attrition. (CB)

Considers role of multicultural literature in stimulating children's language and cognitive development. Argues that a well-balanced multicultural literature program includes literature that depicts people with a variety of aspirations, from different socioeconomic levels and occupations, and with a range of human characteristics. (DST)

Points out that helping the ESL students in the composition class entails understanding the nature of the process by which they acquire their new language, avoiding judgments that underestimate their control of English, and providing a secure, comfortable learning environment. (EL)

Indicates that oral reading, turning the text into a big book, interpretive activities, and repeated shared readings can give even young children a command of the text. (FL)

Examined topic discourse skills in pre-operational level 2- to 6-year-olds (N=30) interacting with their mothers during free play. The results suggested a complex picture of children's management of discourse as it relates to topic and mothers' continuing role in facilitating their children's discourse skills. (Author/CB)

Investigates the effects of reading a series-format, many-volumed story to disadvantaged first graders. Results indicate that children who had been read to outscored children in the control classes on measures of decoding, reading comprehension, and active use of language. (SRT)

Indicates that (1) children's violations decreased with age; (2) in the dyadic context, fathers assumed a more directive role in response to children's violations than did mothers; (3) there were no between-parent differences between parents regarding reactions to children's violations in the triadic context. (NKA)

Reports a study that examined sixth- and 10th-grade students' ability to generate orthographic and phonetic derivatives for three predominant vowel-alternation patterns characteristic of internal derivational morphology. Results support the hypothesis that a productive knowledge of these patterns in orthography precedes a productive knowledge of…

Investigates the metalinguistic ability of monolingual or bilingual children between five and nine years of age on two language tasks (grammaticality judgment and correction). (HOD)

This paper addresses issues raised in developing programs and strategies to serve Hispanic students. Discussed specifically are: (1) the demographics of California and educational implications; (2) the role of culture in the school-home relationship; and (3) the significance of language for linguistic and cognitive development of language minority…

The role of syntactic/semantic structure in the motor programing of speech by five-year-olds, eight-year-olds, and adults was investigated. Repetition durations were found to be shorter for simple than for complex sentences at all ages. However, linguistic complexity affected durational variability only for adults. (Author/SED)

Reports on data collected in nine age ranges from 18 months to 71 months that examined children's ability to understand emotion-descriptive adjectives when used by adults and their own use of these words in productive vocabulary. (HOD)

Suggests that teachers examine the assets of natural language in children's homes for implications for language instruction at school. Discusses a children's story that can be interpreted as an analogy with instructional implications for creating natural language contexts in the classroom. (HTH)

To teach reading, teachers should take a greater account of the place of language, its use, and its place in each child's reading development. Advocates stimulating children's oral and written awareness by usage; by reading to and with children; by writing for, to, and with them; and by involving children in books, stories, and in the sense of…

Presents insights that the Oral Proficiency Testing Program of the Foreign Service Institute can give writing teachers and focuses specifically on how these insights can help them to identify and articulate appropriate objectives for basic writing courses and to develop curricula appropriate to those objectives. (EL)