Prepared by teachers for teachers, this practical classroom guide offers a process of monitoring language development and planning for development within a whole language framework, supported by a compendium of appropriate practice to be drawn on when needed. The guide (1) emphasizes the interdependence of reading, writing, talking, and listening; (2) highlights the close similarities between learning to talk and learning to write and read; (3) emphasizes the complex process of language development; (4) demonstrates that monitoring and assessment of each student's language development can be a natural part of classroom management; (5) suggests ways of observing and evaluating students' development, recording and analyzing data and planning appropriate learning; and (6) provides support for teachers in describing students' progress in language development for communicating with other teachers, students, and parents. The guide's framework offers a useful way of looking at whole language through five interdependent strands which serve to organize the range of indicators of language development, most of which represent more than one of the four major modes of reading, writing, talking, and listening. The guide is designed so that teachers can adapt it for use with their classes or individual students, in accordance with their own organizational and teaching styles. (SR)