Recognizing the utility and limitations of traditional curriculum and of present language programming for its mostly Navajo population, the Ganado Public School District developed the GLAD (Ganado Language Arts Development) project, which aims to: develop literacy in kindergarten through third grade students; expand and enrich the pedagogical…

Traditional teaching of English language arts is based on a receptive-accrual view of learning, which places the learner in a passive rather than an active role in the teaching-learning process. This approach conveys to the learner the view that the subject matter is fragmented and that teachers prepare discrete, disconnected lessons. L.M.…

Publishing children's written work in the elementary classroom enables children to see themselves as creators of ideas, as producers of language, and as functioning members of the language community. This paper suggests many forms in which children's writings may be published. Step-by-step explanations and accompanying illustrations tell how to…

The Story Maker is a teaching device that allows children to create stories by choosing options from a set of already-written story segments. This device (1) provides an active language experience that allows children to construct stories easily; (2) demonstrates the consequences of choosing different ways for a story to proceed; (3) avoids the…

This article criticizes the use of translation from English into French as a method of teaching French, and proposes alternative methods, including a variation on the language experience approach. (CLK)

Described is a science and language arts activity which involves students writing books about topics of classroom discussion. The information for these books was compiled from encyclopedias, magazines, and personal observation. Grammar skills were emphasized along with scientific content. Students' books were placed in a class library for student…

Maintaining that sentence-combining language experience is the single most beneficial tool currently available to improve student writing, this paper speculates about the value and effects of the adoption of the language experience approach across the English curriculum. It presents six tasks that need to be undertaken by teachers, researchers,…

In order to document the self-directed, spontaneous growth in literary output of a six-year-old child, her writings during a one month period were collected and compiled. It was discovered that the child used writing to organize knowledge about the environment and the operations of print, to maintain personal relations, to establish impersonal or…

The language experience approach (LEA) has been used successfully with students who are beginning to read in English as a second language. In an LEA lesson the teacher can elicit students' comments on a wordless picture book, transcribe students' sentences, read the resultant story aloud (or have the class read it), and have the story copied.…

This publication describes the development, implementation, and success of the Ganado Language Arts Development (GLAD) Project on the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona which develops the foundation for literacy in each student, expands and enriches pedogogical competencies of staff in teaching language arts, and develops/strenghtens…