A practicum was designed to change the traditional methods of writing instruction which had not been effective in meeting the developmental needs of first-grade children. Twenty-two teachers responded to two surveys to provide problem documentation data. Four goals and instructional plans were selected to address the problem. The first goal, of…

The paper addresses the development of early intervention programs with hearing impaired infants and toddlers and their families. It stresses the importance of working cooperatively with parents, the multidisciplinary approach, appropriate assessment of both child and family, appropriate intervention including monitoring of progress, and…

Six papers on interlanguage are presented. The first, "Language Transfer," experimentally tests Robert Lado's contrastive analysis principles on the transfer of language skills to second language acquisition. The second paper, called "Interlanguage," builds on this work in discussing the structured nature of interlanguage and…

Cosponsored by Hanyang University as a demonstration of its founding philosophy, "love in deed and truth," this conference focused on literacy and languages from cross-cultural and instructional perspectives. The papers selected for this yearbook and their authors are as follows: (1) "Designing Tasks for Slow Learners in L2"…

Four similarities between reading and writing and their corresponding instructional significance are examined in this literature review. Each of the four reviewed topics is prefaced by general instructional suggestions based on research cited in the review. Topics and suggestions are as follows: (1) linguistic--whenever possible, the processes of…

This monograph presents language factors related to bilingualism, to assist educators to distinguish normal phenomena due to bilingualism from symptoms of a handicapping condition. The first section, called "The Nature of Bilingualism," discusses the diversity of bilingual students and their dynamic use of two languages, focusing on simultaneous…

The West Virginia University Child Development Laboratory has successfully used microcomputers as a complement to their language experience approach to teaching three- and four-year-old children. The computer acts as a motivational tool, and gives children the opportunity to produce perfectly typed pictures or letters. The first encounter a child…

One of the tasks for the British National Curriculum Council has been to identify steps toward proficiency in the English language and, on that basis, issue descriptions of appropriate progress for students at each level and stage. There is a danger that teachers may view these steps as a linear sequence of accomplishments, each to be achieved in…

A study was conducted to: (1) gather data which would permit researchers to describe the teaching behaviors and language characteristics of parents during literacy events with their children; (2) analyze these data for positive or negative influences of parents' oral language on their children's participation in the reading/writing activities; and…

The paper examines issues in early intervention with deaf blind infants. Considered are the effects of definitions of deaf-blindness on service provision and on the training of preservice students in this area. Appropriate programs entail intervention methods that address the usage of residual vision and audition as well as the development of…

The six major sections of this notebook focus on developing the abilities of preschool and kindergarten children in the areas of large and fine motor, social, auditory, visual, language, and mathematics skills. Each section contains several activities parents can do at home in brief and enjoyable practice periods to assist children's development.…

Encouraging the appreciation and assessment of children's language and communication, from birth to the age of eight, is the focus of this volume. Following an introduction, chapter 2 elaborates on the interactionist framework, citing recent studies related to the acquisition of oral language and literacy, while the next two chapters describe…

A comprehensive bibliography on linguistic input in the home, clinic, and/or classroom is presented. Three general categories of materials are included: language spoken to normal children, cross-cultural studies, and language spoken to special populations. Linguistic input is a term that refers to the special language register that parents use to…

Language acquisition theory and classroom applications are discussed, with a focus on the role of speaking and grammar in the early stages of English acquisition in the English-speaking elementary school setting (kindergarten and first grade). Three stages of natural language acquisition are: (1) the comprehension stage…

Viewing literacy as the ability to make use of all available possibilities of written language, the essays in this collection deal with a broad range of literacy related topics and issues. Titles of the 13 essays, written over a 10-year period, are as follows: (1) "The Politics of Ignorance"; (2) "Twelve Easy Ways to Make Learning to Read…