Nine first-grade, nine second-grade, and eight third-grade children of migrant farm workers provided the data for a descriptive study of writing development in a bilingual program. (FL)

Reports on the success of a writing center's phone service, which answers questions about English usage, grammar, punctuation, diction, and documentation. (RL)

Reports classroom observations and dialogues with children that show children's understandings and use of punctuation; reports data showing that children in a class in which punctuation was taught in the context of writing learned more about punctuation than children in a class in which it was taught in isolation. (ET)

Discusses how computer-assisted language learning programs can generate error messages to help students in different ways. The article points out that an easier solution is to program a computer to recognize several different kinds of generic errors not related to any particular question but applicable to many situations, in order to generate…

Presenting over 200 ready-to-use word games, this book introduces secondary English students of all ability levels to the joy of word play while they practice and review a wide variety of skills, including vocabulary, punctuation, word origins, spelling and pronunciation, grammar and usage, and literary devices. Many of the 5- to 15-minute word…

The prevalence of writing errors made by third-year medical students from the class of 1981 at a large midwestern medical school was studied. The papers of 253 students taking family medicine were evaluated for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Four types of grammar errors and seven punctuation errors were analyzed, and each word…

This inventory is designed to enable high school equivalency instructors to profile a student's competencies in the English skills that need to be mastered requisite to passing the General Educational Development (GED) writing skills test. The inventory contains 101 items, tailored specifically item-by-item to 35 skills tested. The skills involve…

With evidence supporting the belief that as a way of decreasing errors sentence combining offers a number of advantages for developmental writing students, a college composition instructor gave 19 developmental writing students five weeks of concentrated sentence combining study with no other instruction or writing practice. The sessions…

One of a series of guides to the teaching of writing at the elementary and secondary levels, this publication describes grammar activities that relate to writing activities. The introductory sections define major approaches to grammar, summarize the current state of research on the relation of formal grammar to composition, and suggest behavioral…

One in a series of ten mini-manuals on office communication proofreading, this booklet provides the business and office student instruction in word division. Included are terminal and specific objectives, word division rules and related information, and tasks for practice. A test over the information presented concludes the manual. (Test answers…

The teacher can stimulate an appreciation of poetry in his students by selecting, reading aloud, and discussing only those poems to which he himself responds strongly. He can also develop students' enjoyment of poetry by encouraging them to bring in their own poetic discoveries and by alerting them to the many possible interpretations of a poem.…

The advantages and weaknesses of conventional grammar and structural linguistics are the subjects of this pamphlet. Reasons given for the widespread attack on conventional grammar are that it has resulted in repetitive and time-consuming instruction, has not improved the students' language skills, has been confused with language usage, and does…

Describes a technique used to involve a class of predominantly learning disabled students in a lesson on the uses of the comma. (RBW)

This workbook, for grades four through six, offers a humorous slant on the subject of grammar through comical examples of incorrect usage, in addition to exercises with a logic twist. The workbook teaches basic rules of language mechanics and reinforces the rules by showing the logic behind them. The book gives instruction, examples, and practice…

This computer program offers comprehensive English lessons for grades 3-4, focusing on usage and punctuation. Lessons are targeted to specific skills, and children earn tokens to play eight logic and action games. The program features imaginative graphics; teacher-approved, step-by-step lessons; individualized instruction tailored to the student's…