Describes several approaches used in trying to teach an adult to learn to read over a period of several years, including the approach that was successful (language experience) because the student was highly motivated to write. (JM)

Research in psycholinguistics and learning theory is reviewed to support the integration of oral and written language skills, and the language experience approach (LEA) is recommended for secondary school second language instruction. This approach incorporates listening, speaking, reading, and writing in purposeful communication. Students use the…

Too often adult literacy programs seem based on the assumption that, if learners work hard on skills for six months, they will have "acquired" literacy, as though it is a set of skills adults can "get" from a tutor (Kazemek, 1985). One study of 20 adult literacy classes in eight U.S. states found basic (not higher level) skills the predominant…

Examines the values of using a language-experience approach for teaching written composition. Urges teachers to use a variety of stimuli, such as field trips, exploring the environment, films, filmstrips, recordings, to extend and expand the child's experience and language backgrounds to facilitate growth in reading and writing. (Editor/RK)

This book offers 80 original chants for teaching children to play with language, discover their ownership of language, and experiment with language. The book states that chants can provide a strategy that develops reading skills, ease in dramatic situations, sidebars in art work, communication abilities, awareness of self and environment, and…

Four elements are essential for efficient, effective, and rewarding teaching of beginning reading. The first is the use of children's key vocabulary. Children are asked, in a prescribed fashion, what their very best word is of the moment. The teacher prints it in a prescribed fashion and uses it to help children acquire one-to-one correspondence…

This document contains reports of individual research and action projects of the Tri-University Project in Elementary Education. In the research section of the document, (1) Laura Chase describes working with two children whose capacity to use oral language successfully was stunted by their experience in home and society, (2) Dorothy Troendle…

Language, considered as a liberal art, is examined in the light of other philosophical viewpoints concerning the nature of language in relation to second language instruction in this paper. Critical of an earlier mechanistic audio-lingual learning theory, translation approaches to language learning, vocabulary list-oriented courses, graduate…

This guide presents an overall plan for implementing Level VI of the Indian Reading Series, which features legends and stories of Northwest tribes in a supplementary reading and language arts development program for elementary grade Indian and non-Indian children. Introductory sections present the rationale of the program's language experience…