The content of this paper will focus on both language and computer practices and how school age students develop their literacy skills in the two domains of "language" and "computers." The term literacy is a broad concept that has attracted many interpretations over the years. Some of the concepts raised by the literature apply…

Voxy, an English-language-learning company, has developed a custom, in-house proficiency exam, the Voxy Proficiency Assessment (VPA), which is given to all learners at the beginning and end of their courses. Using Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR), the impact of covariates, such as total learning activities completed and total number of…

This paper defines and exemplifies the "grammar of the reader." It is claimed that existing pedagogical grammars, although supposedly neutral with respect to skills, are actually biased towards production. In translating rules into the reader's perspective, reader's grammar turns them inside out. Reader's grammar does not primarily focus on rules…

The purpose of this study was to determine the disruptive effect of unknown words on reading and to examine this effect in relationship to grammatical position and modification type. Forty second grade children from two different lower middle class, semirural schools were randomly assigned to the standardization group or the experimental group.…

A total of 19 good and 19 poor readers participated in an examination of the extent to which first grade children who were successful beginning readers would exhibit better syntactic skills in auditory and reading tasks than would less successful readers. To isolate differences specifically related to sentence processing skills, the two groups…

This essay explores the history of the parts of speech and how individual acquisition of grammar may recapitulate history's discovery of the parts of speech and their related patterns. This history of grammar has been incorporated into a program called "Keepers of Alexandria" that is used with at-risk 4th-6th graders to improve reading,…

The Free University of Iran (FUI) operates by means of a multimedia teaching system, teaching students at a distance and developing a learning environment based near the place of residence or work of its students. This document reviews the development of the Foundation English Course according to the systems approach to instruction adopted by FUI.…

The purpose of this program is to determine how to teach the four major language skills, reading, writing, listening and speaking, in an Apple Macintosh classroom environment for high school students who are non-native speakers of English. The syllabus for the course, designed for higher-intermediate students with a basic background in English…

A survey was conducted of 125 parents of elementary and middle school children who participated in a parent involvement program in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. These parents were involved in the MAP (Monitoring Achievement in Pittsburgh)-AT-HOME Program, which focuses on helping parents to reinforce student acquisition of mathematics, reading,…

Two hypotheses proposed to explain the variance in second language tests are investigated. Hypothesis 1 (H1) claims that language skill is separable into components either related to linguistically defined categories (e.g., listening, speaking, reading, and writing). Another possibility (H2) is that second language ability may be a more unitary…

Sixty-five grade 5-6 children were tested on a verbal recall task involving material of varying semantic and syntactic content. There was no difference between best and poorest readers in their performance on random lists of words, but there were clear differences on meaningful sentences and on syntactically well-formed but semantically anomalous…

An experimental first-year German program at the University of Texas is described. The course builds on and extends psychologist James Asher's Total Physical Response strategy and is based on five principles: (1) presenting language as communication in context; (2) teaching recognition before production; (3) postponing demands for error-free…

The classroom practice of promoting glib recitation, on cue, of the surface structures of a foreign language is criticized. This practice has been based on the belief that it equates with, or leads to, communicative performance but the author claims that the attempt to simplify language learning into a sequence of skills beginning with listening…

This paper discusses a systematic strategy for developing oral skills from situational readings in a first year foreign language course. Aspects considered are: sequencing readings into the course, grammar component, vocabulary component, student preparation, outline of two day instructional treatments, the role of the teacher, and student…

An ESL (English as a Second Language) program has been set up for international students at a small, two-year college for women, Immaculata College, in Washington, D.C. It has been integrated into the regular school curriculum and the courses carry academic credit. Courses emphasize specific language skills. Spoken English empasizes oral facility…