This report summarizes four English Language Arts studies sponsored by the Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning under the project title "A Structure of Concept Attainment Abilities": (1) "Selection and Analysis of Language Arts Concepts for Inclusion in Tests of Concept Attainment," (2) "Items to Test Level of…

A handbook and teachers guide to phonics and the initial teaching alphabet (ITA) is given. The use of phonics to teach reading is described with the appropriate rules and steps. The principals of ITA and several practice lessons on using ITA are supplied. (WH)

Since reading and language lie in the behavioral domain of the English teacher, he must be a teacher of reading and know how to perform the following five language tasks: (1) present the code-breaking skills needed to change written symbols into spoken language; (2) produce a wide variety of reading materials on useful topics and record and…

This study of written language development and instruction of elementary school children found that realistic approaches are needed in teaching language usage, dialects, and registers. These approaches should include a nonrepetitive instructional system accounting for different linguistic abilities, a diagnostic evaluation of children's written…

The components of a competency-based English curriculum, grades K-12, are described, taking into account competencies at various levels rather than grades. The content areas at each level include listening, speaking, reading, writing, language, literature, and media. An explanation is provided at each stage of development for: needs assessment;…

The Syntactic Density Score (SDS) is designed to determine the syntactic density of the oral and written discourse of students in grades 1-14, as well as that of reading materials selected for students. The SDS can be hand tabulated; however, a computer program is available which can determine the score from any corpus of material typed into the…

Content and task dimensions of language arts items were studied using factor analytic techniques. These items were developed to measure concept attainment using a completely crossed design with 30 concepts and 12 tasks. Conventional factor analyses were performed, separately for boys and girls, for concept scores and for task scores. Three-mode…

This working paper presents a twelve-part paridigm for testing the level of concept attainment in language arts. Items were selected for three topics: words, words in sentences, and connected discourse. Within each topic concepts presented in the middle elementary grades were identified, and ten concepts were randomly selected for each topic. Each…

Test development efforts for constructing 12 items to measure achievement of each of 30 selected language arts concepts are described. Item and total score statistics for data collected on 186 boys and 259 girls who had just begun the sixth grade are presented and discussed. (Author)

The general purpose of this paper is twofold. One is to survey the research and literature on the learning of oral and written language in the elementary schools. The other is to propose a statement of needs, objectives, and components for an oral and written language program for elementary grade children. The method used for this study consists…