The article presents a summary of the language characteristics of autistic children and relates them to existing research supporting both sign alone and sign plus speech as viable training modes. Procedures for determining the optimal sign teaching mode for a given child are also discussed. (Author/SB)

This article is divided into two parts. Part 1 focuses on the events that took place in teaching the class as a whole. Part 2 presents a case study of five learners who, because they had serious problems, both attitudinal and other problems, received special attention and additional support. The study had two main aims. The first was to respond to…

To make a spelling program more effective, use the children's spelling tests to analyse their errors and indicate spelling patterns. (JH)

Describes a technique for getting students acquainted which involves having them coin words based on each other's first names. (DD)

Suggests that by reading aloud, students may come to a greater awareness of the three subsystems of the English punctuation system--inclusion, sentence stops, and sentence marks. (HOD)

Indicates in poetic form the author's doubts about electronic devices that emphasize spelling drills; notes her preference for instruction based on patterns of language. (GT)

Uses the critical perspectives of Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of language and Lev Vygotsky's theory of language learning to examine the polyphonic texture of writing workshops, the dialogic classroom, the teacher's role as writer and authority figure, and the student's search for voice and role. (RAE)

This analysis of 17,602 frequently used words found that 616 orthographic rimes occurred in rime families as building blocks of almost all the 43,041 word syllables. Of these, 436 were both regular and consistent in pronunciation, and only 86 had less than a 90 percent level of consistency. Results suggest the usefulness of rime units for teaching…

The Lexical Approach (LA) is founded on the belief that, in order to achieve a high level of accuracy "with fluency," learners of a foreign language need to commit to memory vast numbers of multi-word expressions. However, since it is far from clear that the methodology currently associated with the LA holds out well-founded hope that phrase…

The purposes of this paper are: (1) to illustrate the nature of the difficulty when disadvantaged black children are taught reading by conventional methods; (2) to show that the conflict points, specifically, the phonological conflict points, need not be a problem if they are simply disregarded; and (3) to argue that disadvantaged black children…

An innovative approach to facilitate student mastery of Spanish linguistic structures requiring manipulation of the direct object is described in this article. The method, derived originally from William Bull's "Spanish for Teachers," also enables students to apply the transformational method to sentences containing nominalized adjectives,…

The use of "a,""de," or nothing preceding complement infinitives in French is addressed from the perspective of the deeper grammatical relations involved, and possible instructional strategies are suggested. Examples and comparisons are made in English. Unlike the traditional approach, it is assumed that a preposition is…

The study of dialects offers a fascinating approach to learning about language. By learning about how language varies geographically and socially, students will come to understand that language changes over time, and that language use is linked to social identity. Language variation, or dialect diversity, reflects the fact that languages change…

Paper originally delivered at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in April, 1971, in which the author described the ways in which the short film, The Game," is used as a tool in role-playing techniques and in stimulating creative writing. (DR)