There has been disagreement among linguists and psychologists concerning the age at which children develop social perceptions of others on the basis of difference in speech. The purpose of the present study was to determine in what ways eight- and nine-year-old children from different socioeconomic backgrounds might react to dialect differences.…

This study develops specific facts about the nature of the Black English "lingua franca" which formed on the American eastern seaboard in the last half of the eighteenth century. Accepting an assumption that American English of this period was levelling into a "koine," this investigation attempts to characterize the consonant loss and substitution…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles deal with the following topics: (1) teacher training of bilingual teacher aides; (2) teaching strategies for secondary school English teachers; (3) the effectiveness of inservice training that used the publication…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 29 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the language in a Spanish bilingual reading classroom; (2) the early stages of language acquisition of black children; (3) the dependency relation between oral…

This volume on the language education of minority children is divided into three sections: (1) Multilingualism in the United States, (2) Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, and (3) Language Education in Practice. Following an introductory essay, "The Language Education of Minority Children," by Bernard Spolsky, the articles in the first section…

An exploration of issues in language diversity addressing the nature of dialect, features of the dialect, features of black English Vernacular (BEV), linguistic phenomena in the black urban community, theories of the origins of BEV, and its social, economic, and political ramifications suggest that BEV, like other dialects, meets the needs of its…

In a practicum study, 21 students in a speech and debate class were encouraged to discuss openly the roles of Black English (BE) and Standard English (SE), use both freely in the classroom, and engage in speaking situations in the classroom and forensic tournaments to develop confidence and proficiency in their speaking abilities. The objective…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 21 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) a teacher training packet for fifth and sixth grade reading teachers, (2) the relationship of intellectual and nonintellectual variables to performance on the…

A social literacies perspective is used to analyze a rap written by a high school student. The article begins with an examination of the student's uses of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and standard English. The student writing sample and the researcher's analysis are subjected to review by two other African American teenagers, and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 14 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the English reading competence of Navajo students in public and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools; (2) the effect of syntax on readability for Spanish-speaking…

Linguists and psychologists have disagreed concerning the development and nature of children's social perceptions of others on the basis of speech differences. The present study sought to determine in what ways 8- and 9-year olds from different socioeconomic backgrounds might react to dialect differences. Ninety-two randomly selected 8- and…

The main purpose of this study is to measure the attitudes of teachers toward speech varieties used by speakers of Black English and to determine whether there is any evidence that those attitudes are linked to pupils' classroom performance in reading. Also investigating is whether exposure to information about and experience with varieties of…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 22 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) black English and reading; (2) academic achievement, self-concept, and attitudes toward reading of students in bilingual and traditional programs; (3) cultural…

This paper examines the questions of whether or not previous knowledge of Spanish (oral and/or written) interferes with an English as a second language (ESL) student's acquisition of English reading skills, which skills are affected, and what classroom techniques are successful in dealing with it. Two contrasting views of reading are examined:…

In this appendix to the Content Area Reading Project report, a large variety of materials is presented for use in the content component of the project. Among the materials are the following: a bibliography of professional materials on content reading; an annotated bibliography of junior high school materials for reading development in ten content…