This study used a variation of the two-child communication situation in order to determine in what way, and how successfully, a small set of schoolrelated relational concepts would be communicated by inner-city elementary school black children. Included for comparative purposes was a test of comprehension of the standard version of the concepts.…

Jamaican dialect among Blacks in Britain seems to help unify working-class Black youth, thus making it a political, as well as a cultural resource, in the development of Black identity. However, this language form also contributes to differences between some first- and second-generation Afro-Caribbean Blacks in Britain. (IS)

The following are the basic theories concerning the teaching of English to African-American students: (1) the laissez-faire approach (noninterference with the language of the student); (2) the bidialectical approach (teaching English as if it were a foreign language); and (3) the eradicationalist approach (teaching standard English, emphasizing…

This report describes a program which grew out of a study that explored writing and literacy skills in Anglo, Black, and Hispanic high school students in North Philadelphia. Section One describes writing in the lives of adolescents as viewed within the home, community, noninstitutional, and broader sociopolitical settings. Particular emphasis is…

The cross-cultural approach to reading, which involves a structured, individualized sequence of learning activities, was designed to accommodate the culture and language of black "nonmainstream" students. The approach includes two teaching/learning strategies: associative bridging, the process of beginning with students' familiar dialect and then…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 28 titles are concerned with a variety of topics related to the following: the use and teaching of English in bilingual, bidialectal, and bicultural situations, including studies of reading achievement and dialect; language…

Ninety children were administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) with the standardized administration, as well as an elicited word response task of the PPVT Stimulus Plates. The subjects were inner city black (BIC), inner city white (WIC), and middle class white (WMC) children. The data were analyzed to determine consistency of item…

For an educator who teaches English in a multicultural setting, the best way to accommodate marked features of African-American vernacular English (AAVE) in black students' freshman essays is to preserve these features in teaching students narrative writings and guide African-American students to avoid these features in expository (academic)…

Numerous investigations of the relationship of oral language skills to the acquisition of reading show that the nonstandard language of the child accounts, at least in part, for classroom failure. Even a teacher who is well informed about the nature of nonstandard language and its relationship to reading and academic success requires a valid oral…

It has recently been noted that Negro children, especially those of lower socioeconomic status, have a language system whose phonological and grammatical rules differ in predictable ways from the rules governing the standard English used by most white Americans. Four features of Negro non- standard American English have been noted with predictable…

This study both examines the relationship between oral dialect proficiency--Standard English and Black Nonstandard English--and auditory comprehension of stories presented in Standard or Black Nonstandard English and attempts to obtain information concerning the reactions of black dialect speakers to oral stories in Black Nonstandard English and…

This book provides tools that black parents can use to make their children lifelong lovers of reading and writing. It is geared specifically to black children from the perspective of an educator and parent. The book stresses the need for early involvement in the learning process, challenging the traditional notion that issues surrounding child…

A study of the relationship between patterns of use of the verb "to be" and reading comprehension had as subjects 103 college freshmen in a developmental program, including 53 black and 50 white students. The students' use of Black English constructions of the verb on a writing skills test and their errors in response to a reading comprehension…

In analyzing the issue of the extent to which speaking a nonstandard dialect of English affects a child's ability to learn to read, this paper reviews linguistic and reading research from the 1960s to the present and notes how that research has changed and developed. Based on this research, the paper argues that (1) there is no direct causal…

Whether black students should be required to use standard English in school is a controversial issue that has fostered contradictory opinions, studies, and data. This annotated bibliography of more than 100 items provides a wide range of material dealing with the following aspects of this topic: the historical backgrounds of black English, the…