The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the grammatical features of their dialect on the reading comprehension of speakers of a black nonstandard dialect of English. Subjects were 119 fifth grade speakers of black English (BE) in 13 classes in three semirural school districts of a southern state. An oral test in standard English…

Since no attempt had been made to determine classroom teachers' knowledge and understanding of the rules of Black English as identified by linguists, this study was designed to construct an appropriate instrument which could be administered to classroom teachers who want to work successfully with lower-class black children. Criterion-referencing…

This study addressed the following three questions: Among the grammatical patterns that first graders are expected to be able to read, are there any which are particularly easy or particularly difficult to interpret? Can these grammatical patterns be mastered with equal ease by students of varying reading ability? Do these grammatical patterns…