A study of children's egocentrism in their use of person and case examined whether 7-year-olds would tend to cast themselves as subjects in sentences using the verbs "give, show, say, tell, and lend," and what role they might assign the hearer. In 85 utterances, the children (N=17), with an average age of 7.8 years, showed the expected…

In an interview, a professor of linguistics at Carleton University (Ontario) discusses his use of computers and the programing language LOGO in a fourth-year linguistics course. LOGO was chosen because of its similarity to natural language and its method of structuring data. The first use was in an experimental linguistics seminar, in which the…

A study was conducted to find out from learners how they actually direct their own language learning in a variety of social settings. In this study, self direction includes the phenomena represented by the terms "conscious learning strategies," either a focused approach or a general strategy, and "self directed learning," in distinction from…

Research suggests that interaction between native speakers (NSs) and second language learners (non-native speakers) (NNSs) is characteristically different from speech between NSs, and that it is the modified nature of NS-NNS interaction which provides learners with optimal input. A study was undertaken to determine whether input and interactional…

Four separate experiments were completed using the same stimulus materials but different groups of subjects to determine if orienting tasks created problems of control in incidental/intentional learning studies. Subjects were all Caucasians and heterogeneous in age (from 24 to 64 years), educational experiences, and career choices. Those in the…

As individuals read, they construct meaning at various levels, including literal, interpretive, and critical. One part of this comprehension act is creative reading, which may be promoted by self-questioning so that students become personally involved in the material they read. To guide students' self-questioning strategies, teachers can both pose…

In order to foster awareness of the auditory characteristics of learning disabled students and the essential skills involved in effective listening, this paper suggests teaching strategies to improve listening skills that include both individual and whole class activities specifically geared to learning disabled students. The first section of the…

Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) is a curriculum tool for use in the preservice preparation of reading teachers. The questioning procedure in RMA is designed to encourage consideration of reading as a meaning-getting process rather than as a process of seeking accuracy or perfection. The technique, which involves the teachers in analyzing a…

This paper is a synthesis of the recent research about language and literacy learning, the universal cognitive strategies used in language processing, and the educational implications of these new insights on literacy learning. Four universal cognitive strategies used by experienced written language users--textual intent, negotiability, fine…

The model of sentence perception proposed by Fodor, Bever and Garrett (1974) emphasizes the importance of grammatical cues signalling clause boundaries, and suggests that segmentation of a sentence into clauses precedes computation of the internal structure of those clauses. However, this model has nothing to say about the many sentences in which…

This discussion is based on the results of an earlier experiment in which four groups of deaf subjects, ranging in age of first exposure to signing from birth to over eighteen, were given lists of sentences in American Sign Language to shadow and recall immediately after presentation. It was found that in terms of overall accuracy, early learners…

Using a text semantic framework, a two-year study examined the process by which readers construct meanings from standardized reading comprehension tests used as texts. The text analytic system described "ideal reader" interpretations of texts, allowing comparisons with real reader interpretations. Specific analyses described the ideal…

Noting that register and cohesion are two concepts that define a text, this paper describes register as the variety of language that is appropriate for the situation of the speech event and cohesion as the semantic relations in a text that make it coherent. The first part of the paper discusses three cross-cultural studies of comprehension…

This review of the literature on reading theories is built around three components: an explication of each theory, an evaluation of the theory based on an examination of its internal and external coherence and correspondence, and an application of the theory to a child's reading. The literature is organized around discussions of 12 benchmarks…

The left hemisphere of the brain is analytic and "particularistic" in orientation--focusing on individual elements within a field and analyzing them sequentially. The right hemisphere of the brain is holistic or relational in processing, and is predisposed to see wholes simultaneously. One of the most prominant features of the EEG is the asymmetry…