Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest provides a rationale for an integrated language arts curriculum. The digest first defines integrating the language arts curriculum as providing natural learning situations in which reading, writing, speaking, and listening can be developed together for real purposes and real audiences. It then explores some of the research supporting integrated language arts instruction: first language acquisition research, emergent literacy studies, and classroom based research. Finally, the digest explores how the language arts can be integrated, suggesting that teachers focus on something other than language and provide an environment rich with resources for making language connections. (HTH)