The word frequency lists presented in this publication were compiled to create a database for further research into vocabulary use, especially the variation in vocabulary due to differences in situation and social group membership. Taken from the natural conversations of 40 target children (four and a half to five years old) with their families,…

The acquisition of the copula and auxiliary "be" forms of "am,""is," and "are" was studied with 16 children. Spontaneous social speech samples were obtained from each child. One child's speech was sampled for approximately one hour per week from age 2;5 through 4;0, and for one-half hour per week from age 4;1 to 5;0. A second child's speech was…

The ontogenetic development of human vocal utterances and their role in early interaction processes were studied with a three-month-old baby. Recordings were made of infant vocalizations in the home and the sounds were classified. During a five-minute segment between the mother and infant, the infant produced 59 utterances, 93 percent of which had…

A study investigated reading performance in one dimension of the language experience approach--the dictation of a story to accompany a wordless picture book. A miscue analysis procedure was used to describe the strategies and miscues evidenced by eight first grade beginning readers while reading a basal text story and while reading a dictated…

Noting that while laboratory investigations of recordings of children's spontaneous verbal creations or repetitions of traditional forms in their natural play habitats have indicated that they do engage in systematic explorations of language structures in their play, this paper points out that there have been no investigations of whether such…

The purposes of this study were (1) to investigate the metalinguistic knowledge children have acquired from their environment before formal instruction, and (2) to examine the relationship between evolving writing and reading behavior. Twenty middle-class children ranging in age from 4.1 years to 5.11 years were selected. The Goodman and Cox…

A study was conducted to determine whether children give evidence of using any of six comprehension strategies and whether children of same and different ages use different strategies. It was studied how comprehension performance can best be predicted by other facts about the child, including his language and his language input. The six…

The work described in this paper was undertaken to study children's ability to preserve semantic relations during analogical mappings. Two experiments are described based on the understanding that metaphors and analogies are mappings from one semantic region (the domain of origin) to another (the range of application), which convey the idea that…

Four scales developed by Marion Monroe for recording, describing, analyzing, and rating children's oral language skills are described and presented in this paper. The skills assessed by the scales are first described as follows: (1) how a child thinks, as revealed by the quality of ideas; (2) how a child thinks, as revealed by definition of words;…

This paper reports the results of a preliminary study dealing with the ways in which children between ages 6 and 7 organize spoken language. In particular, aspects of the temporal and segmental structure of polysyllabic English words containing the syllable C/jul/, as in the word "pediculous," are dealt with. This study is based on the assumption…

From the standpoint of transformational grammar, this experimental work evaluates the extent to which children choose or fail to generalize their rules for the placement of the negative particles "not" and "n't." The subjects were eight three- and four-year-olds of middle-class background who had been producing sentences with…

The discussion and activities in this booklet are designed to "tune in" language arts teachers to children's language so that they appreciate and respond properly to student language development. Chapter topics include responding to authentic/inauthentic child language, keeping records of children's spontaneous language and relating the words to…

The crib talk reported here of a 2;2-2;4-year-old boy replicates the phenomenon of crib talk reported in previous studies by other investigators. This study adds a corpus of mother-child interaction (MCI) and tests one aspect of the hypothesis that crib talk may enhance production of linguistic forms at a later date. Transcripts of monologues were…

Reading can be defined as a meaningful interaction with a print setting. Interactive models of reading assume that lower level and higher level processing occurs simultaneously, interacting with each other. The familiarity of the book, the context in which a sign occurs, and the illustrations of a book are all examples of print setting cues that…

This Child Development Associate (CDA) training module is designed to help CDA interns to understand, assess, and foster the development of children's communication skills. Objectives are stipulated, activities for achieving each objective are suggested, and an assessment checklist is provided. A study guide emphasizes (1) the nature and use of…