The project was designed to develop a multisensory, language-oriented curriculum to introduce the letters of the alphabet to six hearing impaired preschoolers. Every week a new letter is introduced via such tasks as art and cooking activities, snacks, beginning sound picture cards, yarn and lacing letters, sandpaper letters, alphabet string beads,…

This study investigated whether or not preschoolers can learn novel words when viewing television. A total of 61 preschool children, ages 3 and 5, were assigned to either an experimental or control group. A 15-minute television program was prepared with two different voice-over narrations. The experimental version featured 20 different novel…

As part of an effort to help preschool classroom teachers of the hearing impaired identify those children at risk in developing positive peer relationships, information was collected on 100 children with hearing impairments and 82 children with normal hearing. For hearing impaired subjects, data were collected on age, gender, age of onset of…

The proceedings from this colloquium on the assessment of outcomes of preschool programs include presentations on (1) what should be assessed; (2) how social and emotional development can be assessed; and (3) how language intervention outcomes are to be assessed. Notes regarding the major ideas expressed during the discussions are also included.…

Offered are 20 tips that caregivers can use to help young children discover the pleasures and powers of language. Tips include: tie words to actions; use language that matches the child's stage of development; use specific encouragement; help children think in sequences; teach time and space words, as well as polar opposites and relational terms;…

A project in Sweden focuses on the early linguistic development of preschool deaf children in families where the parents are also deaf. The School for the Deaf in Sweden is involved with describing the Swedish language as it appears to a deaf learner, a description to be used as a basis for teacher training and inservice in the teaching of the…

Two studies were conducted, with three-to-five-year-olds, to assess the relationship between language comprehension and production and the development of quantity concepts. The asymmetry of acquisition of adjectives, "big" and "little," was also assessed, as well as differences in the acquisition of the underlying concepts. In Experiment 1, it was…

The Building Blocks Model for promoting basic literacy in young children is a three-dimensional model comprised of building blocks, one for each step of the process of laying the foundations for literacy. Each of the small blocks within the large solid cube represents a unique ability that can be distinguished in terms of the three…

This speech, presented at the 1977 meeting of the World Organization of Preschool Education (OMEP), proposes that the preschool linguistic environment determines language facility, which affects later school and work success. The normal course of communicative ability is traced. It is proposed that although most children, in and out of preschool,…

PRESENT PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS FOR DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN ARE OF 3 KINDS--(1) AN INVENTORY TYPE WHICH ATTEMPTS TO IDENTIFY DEFICITS WHICH WILL AFFECT SCHOOL LEARNING AND TO OVERCOME THESE THROUGH EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES, (2) A PLAN BASED ON A RECAPITULATION THEORY WHICH ATTEMPTS TO DESCRIBE DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES AND TO COMPENSATE FOR THOSE WHICH A…

This paper presents a system for describing and categorizing various theories of language and thinking. Within this system, theories are described in terms of their position on three basic issues: (1) the direction of dependency between language and cognition, (2) the necessity of that dependency, and (3) the level of specificity at which the…

The language development activities suggested in this pamphlet are designed to involve parents of five-year-old children in the development of the children's capacity to learn. Arranged by general time frames, the suggested activities are accompanied by the expected learning outcomes, such as using action words effectively in sentences, using…

The subject of this book is preprimary educational programs; the focus is upon broad educational strategies variously applicable to children ages 3-6. This book communicates to readers the great variety in educational and psychological thinking about children in the early 1970's. The book maintains a consistent research perspective and whenever…

Early Childhood programs designed to promote improved language skills are assessed in terms of contrastive assumptions underlying a different vs. deficient point of view. Both positions are rejected as inadequate because of their lack of correspondence to both theory and reality, and an alternative theory of communicative competence is proposed.…