It is essential that language arts students in teacher education programs learn more than just facts about language, such as grammar, dialect, and so on. Future teachers must be taught how language, especially the child's language, affects the teacher, the child, and the child's achievement in school. These prospective teachers should learn what cultural differences to expect and how to analyze cultural data concerning environment, nonverbal communication, family structure and relationships, and community structure and relationships. Dialect should then be studied, as dialect can affect a child's reading progress if the teacher is not aware of dialect features or the relationships among all American English dialects. Finally, to put this information in perspective, future teachers should study native-language acquisition. (JM)