Explains the significance of stories in productive thinking by collecting and analyzing the reactions of 40 children of 3 and 4 years to 10 stories. Results indicate that stories can be used to understand preschool children's thinking and increase their productive thoughts. (BB)

This study of 52 learning-disabled children, aged 8-13, found that direct feedback and practice improved metaphor interpretation. The approach was highly successful in teaching students to generalize concrete concepts to abstract ones. Further descriptive analyses indicated that grade and reading levels of subjects correlated with metaphor…

Language training for the non-verbal or language delayed child should utilize feedback to reinforce correct responses and should closely follow the syntactical development of normal children. The two basic areas of language training are receptive and expressive. Receptive language training includes attending and responding, following single phase…

AMONG A NUMBER OF SPECIFIC TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING THE DISADVANTAGED ARE (1) THE DIALECT GAME, IN WHICH THE CHILD'S SLANG, "HIP" TALK OR MISPRONUNCIATION IS USED AS THE BASIS FOR LEARNING MORE CONVENTIONAL TERMINOLOGY OR FOR CONVEYING MEANINGS TO HIM WHICH HE OTHERWISE WOULD NOT GRASP, (2) THE HELPER PRINCIPLE (6TH-GRADERS CAN BE HELPFUL…

This document reports on three years of clinical research involving the development of effective clinical intervention procedures for children with slow language development. The assessment and treatment approaches discussed in the report are based upon the developmental model of grammar described in Developmental Sentence Analysis (DSA), a…

Suggests ways of using teacher-produced photographs in English and language-arts classrooms. Offers examples of how a series of pictures was used and how students responded. (RL)

The author is the director of the English Speaking Board, an organization which brings together people from all walks of life who are concerned with oral communication as a means to the "improvement of personal relationships and the sharing of personal endeavor". Here she focuses on 3-13 year-old children and their verbal development. (Editor/RK)

This article offers a framework for language intervention focusing on conversational interaction, suggests some parallels between oral conversations and the development of literacy, and offers guidelines for facilitating the development of language and literacy. Implications for a model of written language are discussed. (PB)

Using a teacher-researcher perspective, a study assessed a preschool storytelling program designed to promote children's narrative development. The program included workshops, child-teacher conferences, and adult and child performances. A preschool class of 17 four-year-olds listened to adult-told stories, rehearsed their own stories with a…

Discusses the value of rhymes in developing children's concepts of story and pleasure in reading. (HOD)

A study was designed to identify highly teachable composing skills that have a strong statistical relationship with composition quality across various grade levels. Sample compositions were randomly selected from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (1972). A total of 750 compositions written by 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old-students (250…

Classroom second language instruction can be characterized as one of the following: focus-on-formS, focus-on-meaning, or focus-on-form. The book titled "Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition" (Doughty & Williams, 1998) argues for the desirability of focus-on-form over focus-on-formS and focus-on-meaning, discussing the efficacy…

Describes an instructional approach that encourages teachers to guide children in narrating stories based on actual or imagined experiences, particularly those that transpire in the classroom. Discusses ways of incorporating events from dramatic play and everyday occurrences into storytelling activities and offers a story sampler that exemplifies…

Five first-grade English as a Second Language children who had been labelled nonverbal were put in a more loosely structured, tension-free situation and were encouraged by the teacher to talk freely under a variety of circumstances. The new conditions aided teachers in eliciting a great deal of speech from the students. (Author/PJM)

This article reviews the literature regarding the seeds of literacy in preschool students. Conclusions indicate that children learn many basic concepts of print communication from daily experience with its use well before any ability to decode writing emerges. Games and other everyday interactions with print are recommended for facilitating…