The primary focus of this paper is on black children and the relationship between their productive and receptive language competencies. The solutions which have been proposed to solve the dilemma of black pupils' poor reading achievement are discussed. It is noted that none of the proposed solutions has the unqualified support provided by a mass…

Goodman's hypothesis, that the task of learning to read is made more difficult as the divergence between the dialect of the learner and that of the material increases, raises three questions considered by the author to be central to the dialect/reading issue. The first asks what influence dialect has on acquiring reading ability; the second asks…

Discusses the language experience approach (LEA) to teaching reading and offers suggestions for six types of LEA stories: student selected, class shared, shape, patterned, written dialogue, and directed language teaching. (FL)

A noncategorical preschool program for handicapped children employs two language-intervention methods: a precision method in which groupings are made by ability level and data-taking procedures are emphasized; and an experiential method which involves pretesting and posttesting but provides groupings across all ability levels. (CL)

Discusses the need for systematic exploration of claims about the advantages of language experience dictations; recommends that teachers guide the rereading and editing of early dictations to facilitate comprehending behaviors, and that they help children explore writing conventions as their dictations indicate a readiness to learn them. (ET)

Describes language experience activities which tie concepts, vocabulary, sentence structure, and beginning reading skills together and which are appropriate for the bilingual child. (MKM)

The language experience approach is a reading methodoloy that is highly organized, highly structured, and very systematic, but that allows teachers to teach without texts. It is a multiple, variegated set of activities designed to serve one purpose, namely, the instructional use of pupil's own language. As such, there are five interrelated aspects…

The child approaching reading for the first time comes well-equipped with developmental tools to lighten the task. Linguistically speaking, in addition to some decoding skills, the child has a full-blown syntactic system consisting of the basic syntactic forms, though some of the more intricate forms will not be mastered until much later.…

Because disadvantaged Spanish-American children were handicapped by limited language learning and inability to express themselves freely, a model for language training was developed and is being used in the primary grades of the Tucson , Arizona, public schools. The model is based on John Carroll's grammatical analysis and involves teaching…

In this report, an analysis is made of the Title 1 project of the Lorain City Schools in Northern Ohio. The language growth of an experimental group of 30 disadvantaged first graders, who had spent 45 minutes each day in a special language experience classroom, was analyzed using oral language recordings and extensive language tests in order to…

The study of psycholinguistics seems to enable English teachers to make their classes more effective and more enjoyable. (JH)

Described is how the utilization of the science classroom for the development of language skills, particularly in the area of writing. Suggested activities include crossword puzzles, poetry, puppet shows, comic books and letter writing. (Author/DS)