This meta-analysis aims to clarify the relationship between teacher-child interaction and children's outcomes in language, mathematics, literacy, social development, and self-regulation based on the perspective of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). A total of 24 studies with 139 independent effect sizes and 67,919 participants were…

This article explores the nature of classroom conflict as language practice. The authors describe the enactment of conflict events in one kindergarten classroom and analyze the events in order to identify the language practices teachers use, considering teachers' desires for language use in relation to conflict and exploring the nature of the…

Using examples from a Reggio-inspired school with children from ages 6 weeks to 6 years, the authors emphasize the importance of children's rights and our responsibility as adults to hear their voices. "Seen and Heard" summarizes research and theory pertaining to young children's rights in the United States, and offers strategies educators can use…

Teacher talk is a powerful classroom tool. Studies document the importance of teacher language in children's development, in early literacy development, in children's perceptions of self and others, and in facilitating play. This article examines "teacher talk" and its elements--kinds of language, functions of language, promoting children's…

Children need sound language and literacy skills to communicate with others and actively participate in a classroom learning community. When an early childhood classroom offers a language- and literacy-rich environment, children have numerous opportunities to practice language and literacy in a social setting. A language-rich classroom includes an…

In Shakespeare's "As You Like It," Jaques offers the image of the world--or society--as a stage on which "one man in his time plays many parts." The question is: how does he (or she) know how to play those parts? Jaques seems to be suggesting that individuals are the creation of society, and the parts they play are written in…

Teachers should enrich students' language environment, give children opportunities to practice their language, and allow feedback on language to occur. (DD)

Discusses the kinds of things teachers can learn from children if they allow their students the freedom to use their language and their imaginations creatively. (HTH)

Examined developmental stability and change in children's private speech during the preschool years across-task constituency in children's self-speech, and across-setting relations between private speech in the laboratory and behavior at home and in the classroom. Clear associations were found between children's private speech use in the…

This bibliography is divided into three sections. The first section lists bibliographies relevant to first-language acquisition. In the second section, books pertaining to first-language acquisition and to language in the classroom situation are cited, while the third section lists two periodicals in the same areas. Entries include both American…

Discusses how the concept of "scaffolding," adult support of children's attempts to achieve an intended language outcome, has been somewhat misused in the schools, resulting in the support of the teacher's intentions rather than those of the child. (HTH)

Describes a three-month study of literacy development in the home and in nursery school. Discusses the results, which indicated that children engage in literacy events far more at home than at school, and offers classroom suggestions for narrowing this discrepency. (HTH)

This paper outlines the development of an exciting set of changes going on in the field of linguistics at the present time. From studies of the ethnography of communication, generative semantics, variation theory, and pidgins and creoles has come a convergence of interests which highlights the concept of gradatum (rather than continuum) in…

Analyzes preschool class circle time from an ethnographic perspective. Findings suggest that rules, guidelines, expectations, and roles in the event change over time. (RJC)

Ninety-five children in 28 nursery school classrooms were used to investigate the relationships between teacher facilitative or directive verbal behavior in nursery school classrooms and seven aspects of child language change (receptive vocabulary, vocabulary of use, mean length of response, complexity of sentences, inquiry statements, dramatic…