An examination of the linguistic behavior of monolingual and bilingual Spanish-speaking children in an environment where there is opportunity to develop proficiency in two languages is examined. A review of the literature concerned with the relationship of learning processes to psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic contexts precedes an examination…

Compositions in the narrative and argumentative modes of discourse were collected from 240 students (40 boys and 40 girls each from grades 6, 10, and 12) and analyzed for mean T-unit length to determine any differences in syntactic complexity across modes of discourse or grade levels. At each grade level, T-unit length was significantly greater in…

In any successful conversation, a speaker must select both what is said and how it is said on the basis of various estimates of the listener's abilities, knowledge and interests. Most research on linguistic input to children has focused on the tendency of speakers to simplify their speech for the younger listener. Little attention has been paid to…

AN UNDERSTANDING OF BILINGUALISM AND ITS EFFECT ON INDIVIDUAL LEARNING PROCESSES WAS THE THEME OF THESE PAPERS PREPARED FOR A JUNE 1964 CONFERENCE FOR THE TEACHER OF THE BILINGUAL CHILD (UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS). TWO PAPERS SUBMITTED BY JOSHUA A. FISHMAN DISCUSS THE STATUS OF NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE RESOURCES IN THE UNITED STATES, THE PROSPECTS FOR THE…

EVEN MORE THAN A RATIONAL ANIMAL, MAN IS A SYMBOLIZING ANIMAL, CREATING HIS OWN CHANGING REPRESENTATIONS OF REALITY. INSTRUMENTAL TO THIS PROCESS IS LANGUAGE, FOR IT PROVIDES THE BEST MEANS FOR STRUCTURING BOTH PAST AND FUTURE EXPERIENCE. THE VERBALIZATION OF BOTH PERSONAL AND VICARIOUS EXPERIENCE MAKES US REEVALUATE AND RESTRUCTURE OUR…

This Minnesota Curriculum Center report recounts the development of teaching materials on the nature and uses of language for grades 7-12 and presents the first of five seventh-grade units. A description of the origins, purposes, and personnel of the Center is followed by brief discussions of (1) the Center's underlying assumption that a study of…

IMPROVING THE READING ABILITY OF CHILDREN OF THE "HAVE-NOT" POPULATION, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF CULTURAL SUB-GROUPS, REQUIRES THE TEACHER'S ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHILD'S SPOKEN LANGUAGE. CULTURALLY DISADVANTAGED AND CULTURALLY DIVERGENT CHILDREN HAVE PRONUNCIATIONS AND VOCABULARIES DIFFERENT FROM THOSE OF AVERAGE STUDENTS, BUT THE TEACHER SHOULD RESIST…

The purpose of this document is twofold: (1) to describe an experimental parent education program and (2) to describe how such a program will be evaluated. Parents can positively influence preschool children's perceptual, language, and cognitive development with direction. In this project teachers are released in the afternoon to teach parents how…

A series of investigations studied dimensions of individual differences in elementary and secondary school students in ability and "style" in speaking, writing, and other verbal performances; the relations of these dimensions to measured personality characteristics; early childhood and home background factors in these variables; and the relative…

This book describes for parents the effects that recent developments in language study have had on the English curriculum. The discussion covers (1) literacy (language development in small children, spelling, reading, writing, and bilingualism); (2) grammar (structural linguistics, transformational grammar, and the new textbooks); (3) usage…

Little is known about how children gain interpersonal access in settings where adults are not present or are unavailable. This study sought to describe children's strategies for access into and withdrawal from peer interactive episodes in a nursery school. Data were collected from direct observations of two groups of children. One group attended…

A group of about 200 students in Malmo, Sweden, was followed through three grades of elementary school (grades 4, 5, and 6) in order to observe the development of their composition writing skills. The project involved three problem areas. (1) "How does the written language develop and how is it viewed by judges?" The data gathered shows…

The hypothesized ability of adult native speakers to understand linguistic ambiguity was tested. An approach developed to determine linguistic competence tested the ability of 90 participants in individual interviews to interpret sentences having the potential for multiple interpretations. The hypothesis was not supported by the data. A hierarchy…

A comparative evaluation of the effectiveness of center-based, home-based and parent-based delivery systems for preschool intervention services was undertaken. Over a 5-year period, the Pennsylvania Research in Infant Development and Education Project enrolled more than 170 disadvantaged children in its two principal component programs: the…

This report presents a description and evaluation of a workshop to discuss issues in day care. Topics discussed included forms of day care, language acquisition, bilingualism, personality and social development, day care curriculums, and caregiving. Participants in the workshop were the staff of a university-subsidized day care center, parents of…