The nature of meaning as it is developed through interaction between individuals is explored in a discussion of how writers lead readers to understand a text. (DF)

Five language-eliciting situations were presented to kindergarten and primary-grade children to identify developmental trends and task effects in the complexity of language structures, vocabulary, functions, and story conventions used. Limited developmental differences and significant task effects were found. Implications for classroom instruction…

Proposes a model of syntax in which marked structures are conceived as the realization of modes of control that regulate the informational flow of the text at points of threatened discontinuity. Describes two of these modes, found in children's writing, which are concerned with relations of logic and focus. (Author/SED)

Reports on a study indicating children's dependency in oral persuasion on the cooperative nature of dialog and nonverbal vocalizations and their dependence in written persuasion on persuasive strategies found in speech that can be transferred to writing and, concomitantly, their relatively infrequent use of persuasive strategies specific to…

Maintains that our understanding of language is enhanced by the study of pathology, rather than just the study of the normal. It is a sound complementary base to learn more about how language encodes more than labels. It encodes histories, personal myths, and affects and reflects aspects of deviance and delay in function. (SL)

An experienced children's writer and teacher argues for the right balance of the richly strange and comfortably familiar in books for young children. (HOD)

Suggests that there are no sharp distinctions among children's linguistic comprehension, production, and knowledge. Instead, all performance and understanding are embedded in a fluctuating, interrelated thought system. (PD)

Tests were administered to obtain comparative data on the contentive verbal language of three-, four-, and five-year-old black children. (GW)

Teachers should enrich students' language environment, give children opportunities to practice their language, and allow feedback on language to occur. (DD)

In the earliest studies of child language, attention was given to language production as utterances of sound. Association of language with meaning followed as language development and the relationship between language and thought gained serious recognition in the study of child development. The traditional societal view of "a child should be seen…

First explains what is meant by "metalinguistic awareness" as a special dimension of language experience and its seeming importance in education; then describes a conception of the function of "play" in general and play with language in particular; and asks how educators might encourage play with language in school. (Author/JM)

Discusses a psycholinguistic experiment investigating a child's use of relative clauses in English. (TO)

Discusses how parents can be instrumental in developing prereading skills and fostering reading readiness in their children. (TO)

The antecedents of verbal behavior, together with the teaching skills of the adult linguistic community, probably constitute all the necessary bases for language acquisition. As they seemed to be sufficient for the explanation of all the known phenomena, an assumption of an innate linguistic language acquisition device was rejected as superfluous.…

Results of this study suggest that, for primary level children, the natural'' perceptual unit of spoken language is the syllable, not the phoneme. (Authors)