A study identified the homophones most commonly used in children's writing and showed how the relative use of specific homophones changes as writing skill develops. Homophones appearing in Rinsland's "A Basic Vocabulary of Elementary School Children," a vocabulary list compiled from a national sample of children's writing in grades 2…

The development of literacy is traced in this paper to promote the thesis that dependence on literacy education naturally leads to two competing cultures, one oral and one literate. Events in the development of the Greek alphabet are traced to advance the argument, and the differences between cultures dependent on Greek and non-Greek writing…

Inversion constructions (declarative sentence constructions in which the subject follows part or all of its verb phrase) are distributed over the whole range of spoken and written language, not along the spoken-written dimension but along a colloquial-literary dimension. Some of these inversions are colloquial or literary for functional reasons,…

There appear to be two basic theories about the relationship of written language to oral language and the relationship of writing to reading. The first theory views written language as a derivative of oral language and as an alternate but parallel form of oral language. The pedagogical implications of this model suggest that the problems of…

Current reading theory suggests that oral language skills and reading skills interact with and implement each other. Three guidelines are helpful in shaping the development of proficient readers. (1) From kindergarten on, each year should be spent moving from oral language to print. Furthermore, the move within oral language should be from…

Providing instruction in language theory is an innovative technique for use in remedial and other composition courses in the two-year college. Such innovations provide intellectually stimulating material to students who lose interest when confronted with traditional grammar and composition. Students are acquainted with American Edited English in…

SOME VIEWS ON THE ROLE OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE IN THE DESIGN OF READING MATERIALS AND THE TEACHING OF PRIMARY READING ARE CONTRASTED. FOUR AREAS OF LINGUISTIC STUDY RELEVANT TO READING ARE EXAMINED BRIEFLY--(1) THE STRUCTURE OF THE SPEECH SYSTEM, (2) THE STRUCTURE OF THE GRAPHIC SYSTEM, (3) THE RELATIONSHIP OF GRAPHOLOGY TO PHONOLOGY, AND (4) THE…

THIS UNIT GUIDE WAS DESIGNED FOR DEMONSTRATING TO THE PREREADER THAT WRITING IS A CODE FOR SPEECH AND THAT LETTERS ARE SYMBOLS FOR SOUNDS MADE IN SPEECH. IT WAS DEVELOPED AS A PREREADING UNIT UNDER "PROJECT LITERACY," A BASIC RESEARCH AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM IN AREAS OF EDUCATION RELEVANT TO THE ACQUISITION OF LITERACY SKILLS.…

The use of holistic cognitive style in black language is discussed in this paper. Two types of cognitive style, analytic and holistic, are identified. Holistic thinkers are described as socially oriented while analytical thinkers are characterized as task oriented. Evidence is given to support the claim that blacks tend to be holistic thinkers and…

The lack of knowledge about Canadian English by teachers of English in Canada is noted in this paper, and a rationale for the need to understand the sounds, syntax, word formation, vocabulary, and history of the language is developed. An approach to teaching a course in language that provides a mix of rigorous linguistic analysis and a more…

A schema developed for the teaching of reading involves five factors: learning, language, clues, mediums of communication, and adaptive processes. Learning involves four tasks, taught in the following sequence: comprehension, comparison of semantic shapes, composition of the whole into parts, and concentration. There are four general language…

This workbook, intended for use in a bilingual education setting, is designed to accompany the Level Two reader of the same series. Each page presents the Chinese characters in clear, large, pen-and-ink drawings, and provides spaces in which to copy and practice them. (AMH)

THE UZBEKS BELONG TO THOSE TURKIC-SPEAKING PEOPLES WHO HAVE A RICH LITERARY TRADITION. THE STUDY OF THE OLD UZBEK LITERARY LANGUAGE (SOMETIMES REFERRED TO INCORRECTLY AS "CHAGATAY") IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE FOR DETERMINING THE PERIOD OF HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UZBEK LITERARY LANGUAGE. IT IS ALSO IMPORTANT FOR ESTABLISHING ITS…

THE SCIENCE OF LINGUISTICS CAN, IF INTELLIGENTLY APPLIED, AID THE TEACHER OF ENGLISH IN CONVINCING STUDENTS THAT LANGUAGE IS A MEDIUM THEY CAN CONTROL BY LEARNING ABOUT ITS STRUCTURE. KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROCESSES BY WHICH CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE WILL LEAD ENGLISH TEACHERS TO RECOGNIZE THE STRENGTH OF BEHAVIOR PATTERNS IN USAGE AND NONSTANDARD…

The author notes the problems arising from the dichotomy between literary Arabic and the spoken varieties. The thousand-year-old system of teaching literary Arabic, the archaic elements of grammar, and the writing system are discussed. The written history of the literary language is presented in three stages--(1) the pre-Islamic classical, (2) the…